I say this all the time but… time is flying by.  The US Open starts in just one week.  This New Haven preview is coming out early as main draw action kicks off on Sunday, starting at 5pm UK time.  In the lone WTA tournament next week, New Haven offers a last chance saloon for match practice before New York and therefore, has a pretty loaded draw.  Simona Halep and Petra Kvitova are the top two seeds and have byes into the second round.  In the case of Petra, she needs matches right now, not byes.  Anyway let’s take a look at the draw…

Simona Halep is the number one seed and the defending champion in New Haven.  She defeated Petra Kvitova, 6-2 6-2 in last year’s final.  In the second round Halep, the new world number two, will play either Magdalena Rybarikova or a qualifier.  Halep competed well in Cincy, getting two wins under her belt and just falling short in another compelling match with Maria Sharapova.  New Haven offers ideal preparations for Halep because she would only have to play four matches to win the title.  Her projected quarter-final opponent is Flavia Pennetta.  The Italian player won back-to-back matches in Cincy, the first time she had achieved that feat since Rome in May.  She faces Klara Koukalova in the first round; the head-to-head is pretty even with Pennetta winning five of their nine clashes.

The second quarter features the queen of New Haven, Caroline Wozniacki.  Caro won this tournament four times in a row between 2008 and 2011.  She has never lost before the semi-finals.  In 2012, she was forced to pull out with an injury and last year lost to Halep.. basically, Caro loves New Haven. If Caroline wins her first match against a qualifier, she plays the winner of a juicy first rounder between Camila Giorgi and Coco Vandeweghe.  Both are hard hitters, both go for their shots and both like to hit the back fence frequently.  Vandeweghe is in much the better form with Giorgi losing her last four matches.  Wozniacki is projected to meet Sara Errani in the quarter-finals.  The pair haven’t played since 2010, but the likelihood of them meeting again is slim with Errani going up against Garbine Muguruza in the first round.  Errani has not fared well against the big hitters of late…

The third quarter is absolutely packed with all four wildcards and the number 3 seed, Eugenie Bouchard.  Dominika Cibulkova is in desperate need of matches after only winning one match at her last three tournaments.  All her losses have been against respectable players, but they are match-ups she would have prevailed in at the start of the year when she reached the peak form of her career to make the final in Melbourne and reach the latter stages of Indian Wells and Miami.  Cibulkova has drawn Andrea Petkovic in the first round, which is a horrible draw for both players.

Genie has lost her last three matches; she lost in the first rounds of Montreal to Shelby Rogers and Cincy to Svetlana Kuznetsova.  In New Haven, she opens against Bojana Jovanovski.  This is a reasonably testing opener, but it’s a match that I really would expect Bouchard to win.  If she does indeed win, Genie would play the winner of Sam Stosur or Kurumi Nara in the second round, which would be a far tougher proposition.

The final quarter features Petra Kvitova.  The Wimbledon champion has won just one match since lifting the Venus Rosewater Dish.  In her first match in New Haven, she plays either Ekaterina Makarova or Roberta Vinci.   Makarova beat Kvitova in Montreal and Vinci too, has had her success over Petra before.  Makarova is playing really well at the moment with semi-final appearances in DC and Montreal.  She plays Kvitova well in their match-up as she has the ability to live with her power, but also a touch more consistency.  I don’t like this draw for Petra and I think Makarova would probably have the edge if they met in the second round.

1st Round Predictions: Riske d. Dellacqua in 3 sets, Pennetta d. Koukalova in 3 sets, Giorgi d. Vandeweghe in 3 sets, Muguruza d. Errani in 3 sets, Petkovic d. Cibulkova in 3 sets, Stosur d. Nara in 2 sets, Bouchard d. Jovanovski in 2 tight sets and Makarova d. Vinci in 2 sets

Quarter-Final Predictions: Halep v Pennetta, Wozniacki v Svitolina, Petkovic v Bouchard and Suarez Navarro v Makarova

Moo’s Final Prediction: Halep d. Petkovic

Note: I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than preview the Winston-Salem draw.  I will put up a sheet of draw predictions for W-S though…