Watched the 15 minute replay of Kostyuk Andreeva last night and boy was Marta impressive. She's had some recent issues with her serve but she seems to have put that behind her and is back doing what she's been doing all year which is play like one of the hottest players in the sport.
Gauff has been playing some pretty clean matches so far during the NA swing which is encouraging because that's exactly what you want to see from her. But a combination of favorable draws and withdrawals has allowed her to mostly avoid elite competition and the only time she played someone even close to the caliber of Kostyuk she lost to Rybakina. Add to that the fact that she's in the middle of a pretty significant title drought by her standards. I'm sure she would love the opportunity to snatch a title this week with a draw that's absent Sabs and Elena but I'm just not sure that she has what it takes right now to beat players like Kostyuk, Iga & Pegs.
Without a doubt Gauff's strongest weapon is her athleticism but probably the one top 50 player that can go toe to toe with her on that front is Kostyuk. Against other elite ball bashers Gauff uses her athleticism to return every single ball, forcing her opponent to go bigger and bigger trying to get through her until finally the error comes. This doesn't work with an athlete Kostyuk across the net.
Another thing I like about Kostyuk in this matchup is her coaching and preparation. Marta heavily leans on her coach for prematch game planning as well as in-match feedback and her team seems to always have her prepared for big matches and effectively utilize game plans to exploit opponent's weaknesses, which will be a target against Gauff. Honestly from what I see I think Marta's player-coach relationship might be one of the most effective partnerships in the game.
It seems like Coco is maybe being propped up a little here for whatever reason because she should not be this big of a favorite. All the value is with the dancing Ukrainian.
Marta Kostyuk (+124)
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