Tennis Picks

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova vs Sorana Cirstea Tennis Prediction

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who won her 12th career title at Strasbourg last month (d. Cibulkova in final), began her grass season at Birmingham last week, where she ran into the top seed Garbine Muguruza in the first round and lost out 6-1 6-2 in just 59 minutes.
This is Pavlyuchenkova’s seventh appearance at Eastbourne, having not lost a first-round match in her last four stays. The Russian, whose best result here is a quarterfinal in 2012 (d. McHale and Hsieh), lost to world #126 and local wildcard Heather Watson in last year’s second round.
Sorana Cirstea was at Mallorca last week to get her grass season underway. She also suffered a first-round exit as she fell to Swedish qualifier Johanna Larsson. This loss worsens her season W/L record to 9/14, which includes a quarterfinal at Nuremberg (l. Riske).
Cirstea has made four main draw appearances at Eastbourne (six overall), with her best result here being a couple of second-round finishes in 2010 and 2017. Last year, she made it into the main draw as a lucky loser but fell to local favorite and eventual semifinalist Johanna Konta.
Cirstea holds a slender 3-2 lead in the H2H. Last year, they had their first encounter since 2013 at the Madrid first round. Pavlyuchenkova entered the match as the new champion of Rabat but fell to the Romanian in the third set tiebreak after a two and a half hour battle.

Tennis Prediction: Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
Odds: 1.60