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First up on Court 16 for Tuesday’s action at Wimbledon will be world number 243 and qualifier, Tamira Paszek, taking on Australian Casey Dellacqua. Join The Roar for live scores and commentary of this match from 8:30pm (AEST)
Paszek has actually been in quite good form in the lead up to Wimbledon, all be it against much lower ranked opponents. Her qualifying campaign saw three matches where she only dropped one set.
Before that, and since her unsuccessful qualifying campaign at the French Open, she has played grass court tournaments in Ilkley and Surbiton.
Whilst she has won most of the matches she has played, they have not been against opponents of any note, so it is hard to get a true reading on her form when she is pitted against someone like Dellacqua.
Paszek actually has a reasonably successful history at Wimbledon and it is by far her best Grand Slam. In seven cracks at Wimbledon she has made the quarter finals twice and the fourth round once. Her two quarter finals came in 2011 and then 2012, however in the last two years she has had a first round exit.
Paszek has been professional since 2005 and Dellacqua since 2002, yet they have only clashed with each other on two occasions. The last was in 2011 in Rome and they have never met at Wimbledon or in a Grand Slam.
It is hard to believe but once upon a time Paszek was ranked as high as 26th in the world.
Like Paszek, Dellacqua was once 26th in the world for female singles and has a wealth of experience to draw on as she enters her sixth Wimbledon tournament. Whilst there have been no great performances from Dellacqua at Wimbledon, her best effort a third round appearance in 2008. She will be keen to go places this year.
Her form in the lead up to Wimbledon on grass has been average at best, only winning three from six games against opponents she really should be beating. In saying that, Dellacqua does have about a 60 per cent win rate on grass courts, so she will take some confidence from that leading into this match.
In their last meeting Paszek managed to win 6-4, 6-4 in the straight sets. Before that they met three years earlier at Indian Wells, Dellacqua winning that one after Paszek retired.
The odds say that Dellacqua is favourite and that is pretty understandable all things considered.
Prediction: There will be a fight and Paszek will go in confident after a successful qualifying campaign, however Dellacqua will have far too much skill and talent for the Austrian. Experience will help Paszek push it to three sets though.
Dellacqua in three sets.
Join The Roar for live scores and commentary of this first round match at Wimbledon from 8:30pm (AEST) and don’t forget to join in by leaving your comments in the section below.