Madison Keys vs Elena Rybakina Prediction & Betting Tips - Cincinnati, USA

Prediction published on 18/08/2022, 16:53  by Steve Ashfield | Modified on 18/08/2022 at 19:54 in Tennis Predictions

An unseeded player is guaranteed to reach the semi-finals of the Cincinnati Masters. Mind you, one of them might be the Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina who takes on Madison Keys in this quarter final. Their potential semi-final opponent will be either Petra Kvitova,Veronika Kudermetova or qualifier Ajla Tomljanovic. All of the top five seeds have been beaten in Cincinnati, that includes top seed Iga Swiatek who lost to Madison Keys in the last 16. Keys is the world number 24 but up to 21st in the live rankings. A win over Rybakina will take her back into the top 20. Keys made an impressive start to the year with a title win in Brisbane and followed that up with a run to the last four in the Australian Open. Before this week though, she'd lost three of her last four matches.

Elena Rybakina didn't receive the ranking boost that usually comes with a Wimbledon title victory. This tournament began with her in 25th place and she's up to 23rd in the live rankings. Winning this match would take her into the top 20 but that's still behind the career high 12th place achieved in January of this year. Rybakina had played two tournaments since that big win at Wimbledon before heading to Cincinnati. Only one out of three matches had been won with losses to Daria Kasatkina and Coco Gauff. Like Keys, her form has returned this week with straight sets wins over Mayar Sheriff, eighth seed Garbine Muguruza (losing only four games) and then Allison Riske. She's only had one previous match against Keys and that saw her lose in three sets to the American at Roland Garros this year. The first set was won but Rybakina ended up losing a third set tie-break. This is being played on a hard court but Keys is a former US and Australian Open finalist and one to follow when in form. Go for her to win this but it might take three sets to do so.