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The 2019 BNP Paribas Open final pits the vastly experienced Angelique Kerber against the Canadian teen Bianca Andreescu.
The Canadian has been the story of the tournament so far. In fact, it won’t be an exaggeration to say that she has been the most consistent player of the season. She has won the most number of matches in the WTA tour this year.
And it’s not just the number of wins she has notched, but the quality of her vanquished opponents which puts her performance in proper perspective. She has already defeated four seeded players during her journey to BNP Paribas Open final match.
The highest ranked player she has faced this tournament has been Elina Svitolina whom she defeated in a classic three-set match in the semi-finals. The margin between victory and defeat was wafer-thin, with the Canadian winning just two points more than the Ukrainian in the match.
This will be her biggest title yet in her nascent career if she can get the better of Kerber in the final. The German, a three-time Slam champion, tends to play her best towards the latter stages of a tournament, and she will certainly pose some serious challenge to the Canadian sensation.
In the semi-final, Kerber brought a ten-match winning streak of a resurgent Belinda Bencic to a screeching halt and she could do so mostly on the basis of her superb return game. Though she failed to hold her serve four times in the match, she compensated for that by breaking Bencic a whopping seven times.
The straight-sets win would also ensure that the German enters into the match well-rested and confident in her ability. She will need every ounce of that confidence to trounce the Canadian, who frankly has looked nothing like a teenager that she actually is.
Andreescu has played a brand of tennis which relies more on variety than plain brute strength, not that she lacks in the latter department.
Like Osaka in the previous edition of the BNP Paribas Open, everything seems to point at the birth of another tennis superstar this year as well, in the Californian desert.
Prediction: Bianca Andreescu to win in 3 Sets
