Two players who aren’t super comfortable on clay

My girl Dayana! Yes, I think she’s one of the players I follow the most, ever since her title in Strasbourg in 2019, which I was able to attend. To be fair, you’ve got to be resilient to be a fan of the Ukrainian, there are so many ups and downs :) But that’s part of who she is: she’s capable of playing at a top-20 level (well, almost, actually top 21 ^^) and then completely going off the rails and throwing everything away.

The young Russian has been surprising this year on hard courts! Aggressive, consistent, she’s still lacking experience to really bother the top players, but you can feel things are going in the right direction! She even took down a top-25 player this season! A complete counterpunching game, a good returner who still lacks moments of calm, a real little storm!

An attacking pattern on one side and counterpunching on the other, knowing that we unfortunately can’t ignore the geopolitical context of the match. Dayana is pretty discreet about that but committed. Where I’m worried for the Russian is that clay is still largely unknown territory for her at this level, and especially Charleston’s clay, which is quite unique with its Har-Tru. Really not a clay-courter, but there’s only one thing I’m hoping for: to be surprised! Dayana’s experience should be enough here!