Iga Swiatek vs Rebecca Peterson Prediction
Top seed Iga Swiatek will meet Sweden's World No. 92 Rebecca Peterson in the first round of the 2023 US Open. The match will be played on Monday, August 28, 2023.
Reigning US Open champion Iga Swiatek begins her title defense with what seems an innocuous opening match against Rebecca Peterson. The two players have met twice in the head-to-head before, both meetings coming at Grand Slam level, and the Pole never relinquished more than two games in a set. Swiatek has been in good touch on hard courts, winning her first carer title back in her native Poland at the end of July. Her winning streak came to a screeching halt in Montreal where she lost to Jessica Pegula for the second time this year. She was hit with a double whammy as a week later, she was upset by another American Coco Gauff in the semifinal in Cincinnati. Nonetheless, those two defeats are unlikely to have a huge bearing on Swiatek's progress in this match.
Rebecca Peterson enjoyed a resurgent first half of the season. She finished runner-up in a W60 ITF tournament in Orlando at the start of February and just a few weeks later she made it to her first WTA final in Merida as a qualifier. But things fell apart at the start of the clay swing. The Swede managed a measly two match wins between May and the start of August. However, Peterson rediscovered that winning habit at the WTA 125 event in Chicago this past week where she reached the quarterfinal. Can she pull off inarguably the upset of the tournament on day one by knocking out Iga Swiatek?
Iga Swiatek isn't just the favorite to win this match, but the outright favorite to win the 2023 US Open. The Polish star owns two wins over Rebecca Peterson, tallying straight sets victories at the 2021 French Open and the 2022 Australian Open. After a couple of setbacks leading to the event, she'll be determined to record a statement win in her opening match. Much tougher tests are ahead, and we're expecting the top seed to make short work of the Swedish World No. 92.
