Francesca Schiavone will take on Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan in the opening round of the upcoming Sony Open tennis tournament.
The Italian player has suffered a lot of losses in the recent past. But, in the BNP Paribas Open which was played just about a week ago, she showed a little bit of form which is a good thing. Also, her head to head record against Shvedova is quite encouraging. She has beaten the Kazakhstani in all the matches that she has played against her so far.
As far as Shvedova’s recent outings are concerned, they have been quite good. The 26 years old player who is currently ranked 64th in the world has hinted that she is slowly getting back into her shape.
The last couple of years have not been great for Shvedova in terms of fitness. She has struggled with a lot of fitness problems and at one point, it even seemed that her career might be over before time because of the injuries, but, she showed the fighting spirit and the will to come back and she did manage to come back.
Now, she has a good chance to break her losing streak against Schiavone with the Italian not in the best of forms.
The player who wins this match will have to face the most destructive female player on the tour i.e. Serena Williams next which is going to be very hard.
But, that’s a different story. The two players would be thinking about the job that is in their hands at the moment and not about whom they will play against in their next match.
However, it’s almost certain that whoever gets through to the second round would have to suffer defeat against Serena as the American is probably in the form of her life.