Tennis Picks – Malisse moving on

Laura Robson – Maria-Jose Martinez Sanchez
Usually the British women get more or less a freeroll to try their luck at these british grass court tournaments. And they always do without succeeding. For some reason Robson has had to work to get to this tournament though.

She’s been through the qualies and she’s done so in flying fashion winning 2 matches without being remotely close to dropping a set. Martinez plays her first match on grass this season. I’m thinking it could prove a tough test.

Jelena Jankovic – Sofia Arvidsson
The only for offering odds like these on Jankovic must be that she played a final in Birmingham this weekend, which is a risk factor, but I’m hoping she can overcome this hurdle anyway, since Arvidsson is no grass player AT ALL.

The Swede has lost her last 9 matches on grass on the trot and only managed to win 1 of her last 13 attempts on this surface. Oh, and she trails Jankovic 3-1 in h2h.

Xavier Malisse – Viktor Troicki
You never know what Malisse is up to, but he’s usually quite up for the grass season and he played a fine tournament last week in Queens, reaching the quarterfinal after 3 wins and taking a set off Nalbandian before eventually losing.

Malisse seems to be enjoying this dutch tournament as well, since he’s reached the semifinal in both 2010 and 2011.