WTA Doha Betting Tips and Predictions: Our Picks For This Week’s Tennis

The second event of three in the WTA Desert Swing is about to begin in Doha, Qatar. This tournament was the beginning of Iga Swiatek’s amazing run last year and the Pole is back to defend her title.

However, Swiatek’s last outing, in Australia, wasn’t convincing. The comments that she gave in the press conference after her fourth round exit to Elena Rybakina also struck a note of concern in that she made an admission of not necessarily enjoying life at the top.

The vast majority of the big hitters on the WTA Tour have arrived in Doha as well to challenge Swiatek. Excluding Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka and the injured Ons Jabeur, the rest of the top ten are at this event and the last direct acceptance into the draw was only down at ~30.

WTA Doha Betting Tips

Jessica Pegula 1.5pt EW @ 6/1 with Bet365

Victoria Azarenka 0.5pt @ 25/1 with Bet365

Jelena Ostapenka 0.25pt EW @ 33/1 with Bet365

Petra Kvitova 0.25pt @ 50/1 with Bet365

Event In Focus: WTA Doha

The only event on the WTA circuit this week is a WTA500 event in Qatar. The surface is a hard court, specifically it is the Plexicushion Prestige surface, which is the same surface that the Australian Open used until 2019, but most of the build-up tournaments continue to use this surface so it is one that the players are very accustomed to.

Rankings & 12-month Form

The 25 non-qualifiers in the draw have been assessed across a number of relevant factors to provide some guidance towards who could perform well in this indoor hard court tournament.

There can be no doubt that Iga Swiatek is the dominant force here. As well as her rankings being impeccable, the Pole tops the ratings in everything else except service hold percentage over the last year. Her gap in terms of games won over her nearest rival, Jessica Pegula, is some 16%, a greater gap than the rest of the field have between them combined. However, as mentioned at the top, it is not necessarily the stats that concern us with Swiatek and so it is worth looking deeper.

Liudmila Samsonova should be coming here with a title under her belt in Abu Dhabi having let championship points go in the final, but her games won record over the last year marks her out as a tricky outsider. Belinda Bencic won that final and is in the form of her career at the moment. Ekaterina Alexandrova and rising star Qinwen Zheng also show up as players with promise on the 12-month data.

Sofia Kenin, Martina Trevisan, and wild card Ipek Oz look out of their depth in this field.

Hard Court, Current Form & Asian Data

Taking into account the surface type in Doha we are able to break down the players’ career performance on hard courts on the WTA Tour. These records include qualifying rounds. It also seemed relevant to look into how players have performed in Asia in their careers as the conditions tend to be similar in the Middle East and also in other Asian tournaments.

There are four real veterans in the field with over 300 hard on WTA hard courts each. Whilst Garcia and Zhang Shuai have perfectly acceptable records. Victoria Azarenak and Petra Kvitova have excellent ones. Azarenka particularly stands out, and as we saw in Australia, her love for the artificial hard court surface still remains. Whilst neither are at the top of their powers, both would be very dangerous unseeded draws.

The often-injured Karolina Muchova has an elite games won record in her career on hard and Jessica Pegula should be highlighted as getting very close to that 110% mark which often marks players out as elite.

In Asia

It is no surprise that Zhang Shuai stands out as having a very strong record in Asia. The data takes into account ITF tournaments as well as WTA and Zhang would’ve played a lot of those as a younger player and dominated them. So perhaps it is worth taking her 12% improvement in her win-loss record with a pinch of salt.

However, it is interesting to note that Coco Gauff also has a substantial rise in her win-loss when looking at Asian tournaments. Gauff has been on tour for a few seasons now so it is not an anomlyous figure and worth paying some attention to. Gauff clearly thrives on an artificial, reliable surface and the generally dry conditions in Asia.

The Main Draw

The top four seeds do not have to play in the opening round. Qualifiers will be confirmed in Monday’s play.

The bottom half of the draw is the place to attack. The top half looks loaded full of contenders and also holds the #1 seed Iga Swiatek. Gauff, Bencic, Samsonova, Azarenka, and Kvitova, all mentioned positively in the data analysis, are in that top half.

ATP Dallas Betting Tips

Jessica Pegula 1.5pts EW @ 6/1 with Bet365

Pegula is the player who comes out best from the draw. She has a bye into the second round where she will face either Keys or Ostapenko, either of whom could hit a purple patch at any moment, so her path is still fraught with danger. However, her data is by far the strongest in the bottom half of the draw and with her personal problems now made public it may be the weight off her shoulders that she needs to go all the way to a big title. Playing each way as it is 1/2 the odds, so 3/1 about Pegula making the final looks a good bet to me.

Victoria Azarenka 0.5pt @ 25/1 with Bet365

A virtual bye to warm Azarenka up into the tournament should help but yes it is a tough draw for the former world #1. However, Bencic is off the back of a big week in Abu Dhabi and Swiatek may be off-colour. Azarenka has the best career hard court record in the field and so deserves backing.

Jelena Ostapenko 0.25pt EW @ 33/1 with Bet365

The price disrespects Ostapenko. She played a brilliant tournament in Australia, she won in Dubai last year in very similar conditions to this and played pulverizing tennis to do so. Her record in general on hard is average, but she can hit the levels that most can’t and is worth a flyer.

Petra Kvitova 0.25pt @ 50/1 with Bet365

The Czech veteran was actually the champion here in 2021, so a price of 50/1 feels insulting. If she gets her serve and forehand working here then she will test the very best.