WTA Nottingham Preview and Picks

History

The 6th edition of the tournament played in the Nottingham Tennis Center. Due to the French Open push a week back, it opened a bizarre scenario where the Grass season actually starts during the 2nd week of the red clay grand slam tournament.

Last year’s event was cancelled due to the Covid pandemic, so the defending champion is Caroline Garcia who defeated Donna Vekic 2 years ago.  The Croatian hopes to at least match this achievement from 2019 while Garcia is skipping the event.

Favorites and Top Seeds

Johanna Konta is the top seed of the event and despite her questionable form, with not able to win 3 matches in a row in the same event since Cincinnati last August, she has had good fortunes in this event losing 2 finals in a row in 2017 and 2018. She is only 3-7 on the year and 9-12 since play resumed after Covid cancellations last year and has 49-31 on Grass in her career with QF and SF in Wimbledon and alongside hard court, this is the next preferable surface for the British. 

After undergoing a knee surgery after Aussie Open, Donna Vekic returned to the tour in the French Open but despite some encouraging effort, she lost to 9th seed Karolina Pliskova.  She is a projected opponent to Konta in the ¼ finals and it was here in Nottingham where she captured the title defeating the British in the final in 2017. The Croatian followed up that with a SF loss to Johanna in 2018 and a Final loss to Garcia in 2019. Vekic and Konta have had quite the story in this tournament which makes an possible intriguing fixture this coming week. With 13-4 record at the venue and 43.3% ROI Donna is one to look for

Alison Riske rules the bottom part of the draw as the 2nd seed and the green surface has seen the best of her capabilities.  Her 2021 season has been hampered by left foot injury, which was the reason for her withdrawal from Miami in late March and then retiring in R1 Rome last month with the same issue. She has only 2 wins and 6 losses after the tour returned from Covid pause in August 2020. The American has huge question mark coming in though, but if she shows glimpse of her old self in the first rounds, she is capable of doing lot of damage.  Grass is the only surface where she has 70% win/loss ratio with 77-32 all-time record and 28.5 % ROI. She is often someone who bookies didn’t pay much respect over the years because of her lower rank in the midst 50’s but she won s-Hertogenbosch in 2019 and went all the way to QF in Wimbledon where she lost in 3 tight sets to Serena Williams, but scored 3 underdog wins most notably against Barty as a +620 underdog.  Alison has the swag, and she isn’t afraid from anyone, and scoring upsets this time of the year has become some ort of her specialty. 

Underdogs and Dark Horses

Madison Brengle who is in the top part of the draw where Konta is, has a good reputation of spoiling favorites run in big tournaments at astronomical price ranges. Despite being 27-23 on Grass lifetime, she has managed to accumulate +19.4 ROI on ML while beating Vondrousova in Wimbledon 2019 as a +500 underdog and Petra Kvitova as +700 one in 2017. She has sporadic bursts on Grass so is someone to follow closely. 

Picks

Very hard to pick winners in a tournament that first, has so many participants and 2nd is the one used for transition from clay to grass. However, we do have some players that have performed well on that surface and given the fact many were nursing some sort of discomforts that led to early exit in most events from the clay court swing, has led to much more time for preparation for the green turf. So once again looking for Konta, Vekic and Riske to make some noise despite their wobbly form.