Like Broady, I didn't realise Katie B had entered a WTA event next week. That's a winnable match for Katie IMO. It would have been better if she drew a WC or lower ranked player first, but Pera is not in good form, she's lost 8 of her last 10 matches going back to the end of last season.

In 2019 she has:

Lost to Frech in Brisbane
Beat Aussie Bozovic (who I assume was a WC) in Sydney but then lost to Siniakova (no disgrace), get a LL spot (remember Konta-gate) and lost to Bertens (again no disgrace and obviously a different level to Boulter)
Lost to Haddad-Maia in Melbourne who's still very much on her way back after a lengthy lay off.

Her most recent results towards the end of last season were losses to Keys (see Bertens), Siniakova again, Putintseva and Wang Xiyu. The only win in that sequence was against F Liu who has achieved a circa 150 ranking playing 95% of her tournaments in China.

Not trying to look too far ahead as she probably is still the underdog vs Pera, but it could be top Q seed Kuzmova in the FQR and that would be a very tough test, although I think Katie has a good H2H there before the young Slovak burst on to the scene and really started to climb the rankings.

Ace Ventura wrote:

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Oh and Pera is actually live ranked 84 - she has AO 3rd round points coming off (having beaten Jo in the 2nd round last year), so she's only really 4 places ahead of Katie going into the match, but does have a full year of WTA main tour experience to her advantage.

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 Pera might have a full year's main tour experience, but Katie has some good matches behind her this year against higher ranked players, and seems to have improved a lot as a result.

Thought she might have been, but Boulter is the 4/7 favourite here.

Slowed down a bit *3-3

I would expect Pera to win this - shes lost to higher quality players, in general, but lets see...

Katie takes the first set on the tie break. 7-6(5)

Possibly going the distance, Pera broke and then held to love. Just one break, but *1-4