WTA Rabat Tips & Preview | Our Picks For This Week’s Tennis

The Morocco Open has been a yearly visit to North Africa on the WTA Tour since 2001. It has been held in various locations over that time but the capital, Rabat, has been it’s home since 2016.

Martina Trevisan returns as defending champion. It is a bit of a sacrifice to do this if Trevisan has plans on going deep into the French Open which starts next week, but there are 250pts for her to defend here, which would keep her in the world top 20.

The event wasn’t held for two years because of COVID so there isn’t a great deal of recent event-based form that is relevant. Obviously Trevisan is proven at the venue, but there were three other top seeds who withdrew or retired from the tournament last year. None of the others went deep either.

It could be worth looking at the longer shots at this event.

WTA Rabat Betting Tips

Mayar Sherif 0.5pt EW @ 7/1 with Bet365

The Egyptian is obviously at home in these conditions. Add into this that she has a very high ELO rating on clay (#8), far above anyone else in this field, and she emerges as a very likely candidate.

At the time of writing Sherif had already won her opening round encounter impressively against Katerina Baindl, so there is the added confidence that she has played herself into the tournament.

Peyton Stearns 0.5pt EW @ 14/1 with Bet365

Stearns has burst onto the scene somewhat this season. This is her first clay court swing in Europe in her career but she seems like the type of character to embrace the travel and the opportunity.

Whilst it is yet to be proven that clay is a good surface for her, very little clay court tennis is played in the States, she has reached back-to-back clay court finals in Bogota and Charleston, two very different venues.

Her Bogota experience could be great for this test, but she lost in both finals as favourite. The each way bet might be best for Stearns until she gets over the winning line.

Julia Riera 0.25pt @ 66/1 with Bet365

The Argentine has been winning a lot on the ITF Tour. Whilst this is obviously a big step up for her, she could rise to the occasion and be inspired. Certainly this event has seen a lot of shock winners in the past.

WTA Rabat Draw

The draw in Rabat is a 32-player draw, with 8 seeds.