This is a great match-up for the second round. However, it has not been a very good season for Lucie, and, as a results, she is not among the seeded players. Having said that, she played well against Daria Gavrilova in the first round, confidently winning 6:4 6:4. This shows that she is gradually getting her game back.
Šafářová showed good resistance, before confidently dispatching of her opponent with the score at 5:4 in the second set. Lucy has not made many mistakes recently and, as previously mentioned, looked good in the first round. In my opinion she can certainly create problems for Simona Halep.
The aforementioned Halep just smashed Flipkens in the first round, although it must be said that nobody was really backing the Belgian to come through against the Romanian.
The head-to-head record between Šafářová and Halep is 3:1 to the latter. However, there has never been a match where Halep confidently beat the Czech. Everytime she has had to fight hard and come through on a narrow margin. The same is expected today and thus this could be a grueling battle. With this in mind, it’s hard to see this one being over and done with quickly and, therefore, I expect more than 19.5 games.
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