Analysis for Kulikova-Sprem (WTA Wimbledon)

Russian young gun Regina Kulikova will fight Karolina Sprem in another first round clash. Kulikova is a very promising player whose stellar start was disrupted by injury for a while but she now seems to be back and fully fit. She is still inexperienced at the highest level but she definitely has the potential to get there. She is noted for her footspeed and aggressive baseline play, and excellent angles and dropshots; however, her relatively flat, high-risk groundstrokes tend to produce frequent errors, and her serve is sometimes unreliable. She is a confident aggressive player who shined in qualifiers (demolished Schaefer, Bychkova and Rogowska losing just 10 games in 3 matches) and we give her a solid chance to make it even further. She will face experienced Croat Karolina Sprem. Her career highlight is a quarterfinal appearance at Wimbledon in 2004 where she defeated two-time champion, four-time finalist and then-world No. 8 Venus Williams in the second round before losing to Lindsay Davenport in the quarterfinal. Her YTD record is more than stellar but she hasn’t played the biggest tournaments nor defeated well known opponents. Furthermore, her stellar run ended right before French Open and she has been a bit shapeless since then. Kulikovska is a slight favourite for us and odds around 1.9 can be taken.