Second seeded Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus will face the unseeded Tamara Zidansek in the Second Round of the 2021 US Open. The match is scheduled to be played on Wednesday September 1st, 2021 at approximately 1pm.
Aryna Sabalenka is possibly the best player on the WTA Tour today to have not won a major, and that is something that she is determined to change. She is seeded second here at the 2021 US Open and has an excellent opportunity to do on a deep run here. She seems highly motivated and is ready and rearing to go, but will face a tricky opponent here in Tamara Zidansek. If Sabalenka isn’t at her best here she may be in some trouble, will she step up to the plate? Or can the Slovenian cause the big upset?
Aryna Sabalenka is ranked at a career-high #2 in the WTA world rankings and is also the second seed here at the 2021 US Open. She has not played many events since losing in the Semis at Wimbledon, and has had some inconsistent results. A Semi-Final run at the Rogers Cup was followed by a First Round loss to Paula Badosa in Cincinnati, so her confidence may have suffered. She was not as imposing as she usually is in First Round win over Nina Stojanovic, surprisingly needing three sets to get the victory. After some shaky tennis through the first two sets she turned it on in the third, dominating and winning it 6-0. She is very much a confidence based player, so if that isn’t at a high level she is prone to mental lapses, so hopefully she can regain that ASAP. She is the favorite here against Tamara Zidansek, but knows that she will have to be much improved if she is to advance to the Third Round.
Tamara Zidansek is unseeded here at the 2021 US Open and is ranked #40 in the WTA world rankings. The Slovenian was in great format the beginning of the year but has since been largely disappointing, and after winning the title in Lausanne in July has lost her past two matches right before the US Open. She is a strong baseline player that has a lot of variety to her game, and that can be uncomfortable to a big hitter like her opponent Aryna Sabalenka. She defeated Bernarda Pera in the First Round in a solid performance but knows she has to be better if she intends on competing here.
This is the third meeting between the two players, and they have split the previous two encounters. Sabalenka won their last match very convincingly and I am expecting a similar result here. She is a streaky player at times but has matured greatly as a player over the past few seasons, and isn’t quite as “hit or miss” as she used to be. Tamara Zidansek is a very good player and certainly capable of an upset here if her opponent isn’t at her best, but I don’t think that will be the case here. She will struggle to keep up with the big hitting of her opponent and I see her losing in straight sets here. Aryna Sabalenka is on a mission to win her first slam and it is very unlikely that she will be stopped here, advancing to the Third Round here at the 2021 US Open.