US Open: Karolina Pliskova vs. Caty McNally 8/31/21 Tennis Prediction

Forth seeded Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic will face unseeded American Caty McNally in the First Round of the 2021 US Open. The match is scheduled to be played on Tuesday August 31st, 2021 at approximately 11:00am EST.

Karolina Pliskova is one of the major contenders for the title here at the 2021 US Open and has once again emerged as a serious threat to win major tournaments after a long run of poor form. The Czech superstar has been on a roll recently and will be brimming with confidence entering this event. First up in her path is the unseeded American Caty McNally, who is much better known for her doubles prowess than singles. Can she ride the wave of crowd support to cause what would be a stunning upset?

Karolina Pliskova is ranked #4 in the world and is also the fourth seed here at the 2021 US Open. Her struggles at Grand Slams is well known, as the former world number one has folded under the pressure more often than not but she will be hoping to change that here as she attempts to win her first Grand Slam title. After a very poor start to the year she has turned her season around, notably reaching her maiden Wimbledon Final, the Final in Montreal and the Semis in Cincinnati. Pliskova is in fine form and is highly confident, which makes her very dangerous. Once she is mentally prepared for this event I see no reason why she can’t go on a deep run here with her power baseline game, and enters her First Round match against Caty McNally as the huge favorite to advance.

Caty McNally is ranked #130 on the WTA Tour and is unseeded here at the 2021 US Open Championships. The young American has had a lot of success on the doubles tour and will be hoping to have similar results in singles. However she has been given an extremely tough draw here and has to play the former world number one Karolina Pliskova here in the First Round. Even though she will have the home crowd support behind her the task will likely be too great, and she doesn’t have the weapons needed to trouble the big hitting Czech star here. McNally is a fighter and will definitely try her best, but things are looking bleak for the American.

The two players have never met before on the WTA Tour, and I am expecting a very quick match which will result in a win for the fourth seed Karolina Pliskova. This seems like a mismatch on paper and it will almost certainly be lopsided in reality. Pliskova is simply the far superior player and has way too much firepower for her young opponent to handle. McNally is a very intelligent player and will have the crowd support on her side, but she will not be able to handle the barrage of power hitting that will be thrown at her and I expect her to lose rather comfortably here. Karolina Pliskova should dominate this match, reaching the Second Round of the 2021 US Open with relative ease.