Francesca Schiavone will face Alize Cornet of France in the quarter final of the Grand Prix de SAR La Princesse Lalla Meryem.
This season has been a tough one for Schiavone. She hasn’t managed to reach the semi finals in any tournament this season.
Her best performance thus far in the ongoing season was in the tournament in Acapulco where she had reached the final 8. She had been defeated by Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain in the quarter finals there.
She has reached the quarter finals here at Morocco as well and she would want to go all the way this time around.
Schiavone has won her first couple of matches in this tournament quite comfortably. In the first round, she took on Petra Martic of Croatia and defeated her in the straight sets by 7-6, 6-4.
In the second round, Schiavone had another easy win over the Romanian player Simona Halep.
On the other hand, Cornet had a mixed last season, but, in this season, she hasn’t played that badly. She has been consistent and has played well in most of the tournaments.
In this tournament, Cornet started with a dominating victory over the local player Fatima El Allami in the first round. However, in the following round, she was tested a bit by Karin Knapp of Italy. She lost the first set by 1-6 in that match, but, then, came back to win the next two sets.
Schiavone has a dominating record against Cornet. She has played against the Frenchwoman 8 times before and has defeated her 7 times.
However, Cornet’s current world ranking is a bit better than Schiavone. She is at no. 33, while, Schiavone is at no. 48.
So, quite clearly, some of the stats are in Schiavone’s favour, while, the others are in the favour of Cornet. So, it’s hard to tell who will be the favourite in tomorrow’s match. It’s a 50-50 kind of a clash.