Daria Kasatkina continues to soar. In her last match, she defeated Dominika Cibulkova who was too nervous. Kasatkina offered serious battle and won in her style. She also had support from the home fans of St.Petersburg.
Belinda Bencic didn’t find her game yet. Her wins are hard like the one against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. Bencic plays as far as her rivals let her play. She fights for every ball and have a good shot accuracy. But I feel that she’s not fully fit now. Maybe she got a cold. So I think that Kasatkina can challenge her. We are to keep in mind that Bencic had a little time to recover after the previous game, but Kasatkina had far less time because she was involved in pairs match. This is a result of a terrible time-schedule of the tournament.
So Belinda Bencic has true grit and she can convert given chances into points. But she can be defeated and Kasatkina has all opportunities for that. She has a powerful shot from the base-line and can change the pace of the game. Bencic may have troubles with that. So I think that Daria Kasatkina will fight till the end and the match will last more than 21 games.