Saturday at the WTA tournament in Budapest will see the semifinals being played. #1 seed and world #28 Diana Shnaider is the clear favorite to the title, especially as two of the remaining players in the draw are ranked outside the Top 100 and the other one is #79, but those three will surely give it their all to win the title and make this a memorable week. This Saturday should be a great day of tennis in the Hungarian capital.
Head-to-head: Sasnovich 6-1 Schmiedlova
Schmiedlova has won all her matches in the deciding set this week, coming from a set down on two occasions. That will surely give her come confidence ahead of this match, but she’s facing quite a difficult matchup here. Not only does Sasnovich lead the head-to-head 6-1, including 4-0 on clay, but she is having a really good week here, where she even knocked out the #2 seed Tomova. Their most recent meeting was this year in Rome, with Sasnovich win in two sets, 6-2 7-6. While Schmiedlova has some chances here, the most probable outcome is yet another Sasnovich victory.
Prediction: Sasnovich in 3
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Head-to-head: first meeting
Shnaider has been living up to her status as the #1 seed and clear tournament favorite, making mostly easy work of her draw so far. She’s already guaranteed a career high ranking of #25 next week, but she could go all the way up to #23 if she wins the title here, which she looks very likely to. Her semifinal opponent is not only over 100 spots below her in the ranking, but she also has a very long and intense quarterfinal match, decided in the third set tiebreak, to make it to this stage. While Lys will surely be motivated, any outcome other than a relatively comfortable Shnaider win would be quite a surprise here.
Prediction: Shnaider in 2
Main Photo Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
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