The Ningbo Open returns to the WTA Tour calendar after a nine-year absence and three-time Grand Slam finalist Ons Jabeur heads an open betting market, with Petra Kvitova and Xiyu Wang seen as her main rivals.
WTA Ningbo Open Betting Tips
Petra Kvitova to win WTA Ningbo Open @ 11/2
Petra Kvitova is not the player she once was, but she is still a capable operator and should be taken very seriously in company of the calibre that she will meet in this week’s WTA Ningbo Open.
The Czech has failed to go beyond the last-16 of a Grand Slam event in any of the last three years, but she did gain her first WTA 1000 title since 2018 when claiming the Miami Open in April as the 15th seed.
She also picked up the German Open title on grass in June without dropping a set, before reaching the fourth round at Wimbledon, a tournament she has won twice in the past.
The summer hardcourt swing has not gone as well for Kvitova as she managed in the spring, winning one match at each of the Montreal, Cincinnati and US Opens.
Kvitova has not played since that Flushing Meadows exit at the hands of Caroline Wozniacki, but she should have few problems against Anna-Lena Friedsam.
The German veteran had lost four straight matches prior to coming through qualifying in Ningbo and is ranked 100 places lower than Kvitova.
The second-highest seed in Kvitova’s half of the draw is world number 37 Anna Blinkova. The Russian has not progressed beyond the second round of a WTA 1000 event since 2020.
Sorana Cirstea to win WTA Ningbo Open @ 12/1
Another 33-year-old showing plenty of life on the WTA Tour is Romanian Sorana Cirstea and she looks a decent value bet in the other half of the draw to Kvitova.
Cirstea has gradually been re-discovering her form since 2020 and reached her first WTA 1000 semi-final for ten years in March’s Miami Open, where she lost to eventual champion Kvitova.
She also reached a Grand Slam quarter-final for the first time since the 2009 French Open, finding tenth seed Karolina Muchova too strong in the last eight of the US Open after defeating fourth seed Elena Rybakina and Belinda Bencic in earlier rounds.
Those results read well here. Her first-round opponent in Ningbo, Claire Liu, has lost four of her last five matches, while Cirstea has won both of her career meetings with the other seed in her quarter, France’s Varvara Gracheva.
At 12/1, she should give her supporters a good run for their money.
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