Linda Noskova and Amanda Anisimova meet in Cincinnati on a quick hard court with the market barely separating them. Noskova has moved through Boulter and Tauson looking organised. Anisimova needed two and a half hours to survive Eala, which the pricing appears to have taken literally.
Two very different weeks behind them
Noskova builds everything from the serve, and in Cincinnati that serve has held up. It is also the part of her game that disappears without warning: double faults arrive in clusters, and in Toronto the rhythm collapsed from a winning position and handed McNally the match.
Anisimova is the opponent least equipped to let that pass. Against Eala her forehand misfired for an hour and a half and she still won, dragging the match out on return and backhand alone. She stands close to the baseline, takes time away and treats a second serve as an invitation.
Where the price has slipped
Noskova's real ascent came on grass; on hard her season has been closer to even. For Anisimova the fast American hard is home ground, the surface of a US Open final and of the Beijing final in which she beat the Czech. The crowd, too, will be less divided than it was against Eala.
The risks are honest ones: fatigue from the Eala match and Anisimova's habit of starting slowly. At better than even money that is already accounted for, and the handicap version of the same outcome simply pays less.
Prediction: Anisimova to win, odds 2.05
