The first round of the 2023 WTA Monastir Open in Tunisia will be completed on Tuesday with eleven matches on the schedule. As always, we here at LWOT will be offering our predictions for every match on the schedule, including Martina Trevisan vs Katarzyna Kawa and Jasmine Paolini vs Alize Cornet. But who will advance?
WTA Monastir Day 2 Predictions
Kristina Kucova vs Lucia Bronzetti
Head-to-head: first meeting
Kristina Kucova is returning after almost three months with her last match being a round-one loss at the WTA 250 in Warsaw. The last couple of seasons have been rather unsuccessful for the 33-year-old and it seems like she’s definitely over the hill in terms of her playing career. Taking on someone like Lucia Bronzetti in your first match back should be an extremely tough challenge. The Italian has been so regular week in, week out and has all the match rhythm in the world.
Prediction: Bronzetti in 2
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Darja Semenistaja vs Erika Andreeva
Head-to-head: first meeting
Erika Andreeva is coming off a stellar showing at the WTA 125 in Rouen, where she managed to win five matches and only went down to Viktorija Golubic in the final. Now it’s time for her to face the ITF bulldozer Darja Semenistaja, who’s picked up 14 titles on that circuit over the past two years or so. The Latvian is debuting in a main tour event but she’s not drawing dead in this one. Andreeva will be the favorite though with her performance of last week, possibly the best run of her career thus far.
Prediction: Andreeva in 3
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Elise Mertens vs Alexandra Eala
Head-to-head: first meeting
Alexandra Eala is definitely among the most promising 2005-born youngsters (she won the girls’ singles title at the 2022 US Open), but her first main tour experiences have been pretty rough. In fact, the 18-year-old has only managed one win in seven appearances, beating Paula Ormaechea at Cluj 2021. Now she’s facing Elise Mertens and while the Belgian might not be peaking at the moment, you still need to have a certain caliber of weaponry to beat her consistent style that Eala simply doesn’t provide yet.
Prediction: Mertens in 2
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Lesia Tsurenko vs Chloe Paquet
Head-to-head: Tsurenko 1-0 Paquet
Lesia Tsurenko has had a fairly bizarre season with all the retirements and the withdrawals, but the 39-15 win rate speaks for itself. The consistency of winning matches she’s expected to put this campaign right up there with the best of her career. It’s tough to know what to expect from her in Monastir as she’s coming off yet another match she had to pull the plug in (against Barbora Krejcikova in Zhengzhou). But if she’s healthy, she should make it past Chloe Paquet.
Prediction: Tsurenko in 3
Main photo credit: Albert Cesare/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK
