A mere formality for Svitolina?

Elina Svitolina is going through her best stretch of the season. A title in Rome over Gauff, a semifinal at the Australian Open, a quarterfinal at Roland Garros: the Ukrainian is in rare form for a 31-year-old player and she has won nine of her last ten matches. Against Kalinskaya, the H2H is a pure demonstration: four wins in four meetings, with one-sided scorelines each time, including two double bagels this year. Kalinskaya comes in from Roland Garros where she was broken seven times in two sets by a qualifier and went out in the quarterfinals. Her career record on grass is negative and she has only one reference match on the surface over the last 52 weeks.

There is no credible scenario in which Kalinskaya overturns this momentum today. Svitolina absorbs, she transitions, she breaks opponents’ rhythms, and that is exactly what Kalinskaya struggles to deal with in their matchups.