Lucie Safarova and Karolina Pliskova will play each other for the second consecutive week in the first of the Dubai quarter-finals at 2pm local time. Lucie had her best win since Wimbledon as she defeated the world number 11, Venus Williams, 6-4 6-2. Once again, I was following on the live scoreboard… this time, with mouth wide open in stunned silence. I have to be honest and say that I really wasn’t expecting this result, even with my general optimism around Lucie. She produced a superb display hitting 22 winners to just 8 unforced errors to overwhelm the reigning Dubai champion, who was on a 16 match winning streak in Dubai. I think the win over Casey Dellacqua was obviously a huge mental win for Lucie. She was two points from losing that match, but managed to find a way to win… getting through matches like that can often be more valuable than winning easy. I’m looking forward to watching the whole match on TennisTV tonight.
Pliskova continues to look the real deal as she overcame a second set wobble to beat Ana Ivanovic for the second time in her career. Pliskova prevailed, 6-2 4-6 6-4 in one hour and 55 minutes. It was Pliskova’s 15th win of the year and she really IS a machine! She had a disappointing loss in the semi-finals of Antwerp to Carla Suarez Navarro, but with just a day of rest (which probably would have been travelling), she’s come back again to win three matches in three days against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Barbora Zahlavova Strycova and Ivanovic, all quality players. It was impressive to see Pliskova come through at the end when things got very tight.
Safarova and Pliskova met in the quarter-finals of Antwerp last week where Pliskova won in straight sets, 7-6(5) 6-3. I watched the highlights of that match earlier this week; Lucie played some great tennis in the first set, but just wasn’t clutch when it mattered in the first set tiebreak. I feel like Lucie will be in a better situation this time around. Last week she had only won one match going into the encounter with Pliskova, but I feel like her season has properly started in Dubai. In her three wins this week, she has come through a really tight match against Dellacqua and beaten someone ranked above her in Venus. Both players will have reason to be tired although Pliskova’s match on Wednesday was the far more taxing. Nothing would surprise me with Karolina because she just keeps rolling. However, I think Lucie will have more belief and get more opportunities to make inroads on the Pliskova serve, which had its ups and downs against Ivanovic.
Prediction: Safarova d. Pliskova in 3 sets
Moo's Tennis Blog 
I stand by Pliskova. It’s funny because people keep citing her poor movement as this massive weakness, but its probably because she chooses not to run for balls that she’s still fresh week to week.
LikeLike
Heheheh. How does a player chose not to run for balls? She must really be a great player to be armed with that choice and still win from week to week.
LikeLike
Have you watch her play? She literally does choose not to run for balls. You can see her thinking “nope, not gonna get that one”. It seems to put her opponents off big time too haha.
LikeLike
I tend to agree with Andrew. I think her “laid back” style makes people perceive that she is interested to win. In fact, she hits the ball(s) really hard and close to baseline. Based on Lucie/Venus match, Lucie seems to be a better player. However, I think Lucie always peak too early. I stick to Karolina to win this again but may be in three sets this time.
LikeLike
…she is “not interested to play”..typo again with my sticky keyboard.
LikeLike
Yessssss. I don’t know how on earth she pulled that off because she looked like she had NOTHING left after that first set.
LikeLike
She was very luck for one thing! I only saw the end of the second set but the umpire gave her a point that should have been replayed when she was serving at 5-5 40-40. She may of course have held anyway, but it certainly didn’t help Safarova. When Pliskova then got a really bad net cord to get a mini-break and bring up set point in the tie break I think that was the end for Safarova. Full credit of course goes to Pliskova for hanging in there and then getting the job done in the third. Safarova has to put those kind of things behind her if she wants to win things. Pliskova’s laid back attitude wins through!
LikeLike