Sloane Stephens of the United States will face Russian Liudmila Samsonova in the Third Round of the 2021 Wimbledon Championships. The match is scheduled to be played on Friday July 2nd, 2021 at approximately 8:00am EST.
Sloane Stephens is unseeded here at Wimbledon and is ranked #73 on the WTA Tour. She is a former top five player and Grand Slam winner, but has seen a sharp regression and has struggled to string match wins together over the past few seasons. Despite her poor recent form she has been incredible here so far at Wimbledon 2021, shocking former Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova in straight sets, easily her best performance in at least three years. She then cruised fellow American Kristie Ahn in the Second Round, setting up a clash against the red-hot Liudmila Samsonova in the Third Round. She should be considered the underdog here despite her good form, as there is perhaps noone in better grass court form than her next opponent.
Liudmila Samsonova is ranked 65 on the WTA Tour and entered the 2021 Wimbledon Championships as a Wild Card. While her name might not sound familiar to the casual tennis fan, she is in red-hot form over the past few weeks, winning the Berlin grass court tournament last week defeating several top players on the way to the title. She has carried that form into this event, defeating 22nd seed Jessica Pegula in a fantastic performance. Her next opponent Sloane Stephens is a very solid player but Samsonova is seemingly unstoppable at the moment and will be liking her chances here.
The pair has played once before, with the Russian winning their match last year in Brisbane in a tough three sets. This is a tough one to call, with one player being a former Grand Slam champion and the other being on a serious heater at the moment. This really can go either way, but I am going with Sloane Stephens to get the win here. There is something about how she is playing, and her confidence really is back. She seems to be getting back to her former self, and I can see her edging this one. Samsonova is a fierce competitor and will make it interesting, but I think Stephens will have the little edge and pull through here.