The run Canadian teenager Bianca Andreescu is on to start 2019 has been nothing short of spectacular.
With her victory over Elina Svitolina in the BNP Paribas Open semifinal on Friday, the 18-year-old made history by becoming the first wild card to reach the women’s singles final at the tournament. She can make more strides with a win Sunday, as Andreescu would become the first Canadian to win a WTA Premier tournament and the first wild card to win Indian Wells.
On Sunday, Bianca Andreescu can become the first in history to win a WTA Premier Tournament pic.twitter.com/kLbEeoMBkv
— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) March 16, 2019
After earning her first WTA Title at the 125K Oracle Challenger Series in Newport Beach, Calif., in January, Andreescu once again showed her promising talent by beating World No. 20 Garbine Muguruza (6-0, 6-1) and World No. 6 Elina Svitolina (6-3, 2-6, 6-4) in the quarters and semis this week at Indian Wells.
If she’s to continue her historic run, Andreescu will have to down a formidable opponent in Angelique Kerber, a former World No. 1 who’s racked up her fair share of accolades in her own right (more on that later). This will mark their first-ever meeting, as well as the first Indian Wells finals appearance for both players.
Ahead of Sunday’s clash, we looked at how Andreescu matches up against current-World No. 8 Kerber.
Here’s a statistical breakdown of both players’ numbers in 2019:
| Bianca Andreescu | Angelique Kerber | |
|---|---|---|
| WTA Rank | 60 | 8 |
| Record | 27-3 | 12-4 |
| 2019 Earnings (USD) | 135,021 | 290,118 |
| Aces | 35 | 15 |
| Double Faults | 44 | 35 |
| 1st serve % | 61.6 | 61.5 |
| Service games won % | 74 | 69.2 |
| Service points won % | 58.9 | 58.8 |
| Return games won % | 38.8 | 36.4 |
| Return points won % | 45.4 | 45.8 |
| Break points converted % | 45 | 43 |
*Statistics listed below earnings row don’t account for matches played at Indian Wells.
Andreescu has a higher winning percentage in the year compared to Kerber, and her victories over high-calibre players like Venus Williams, Caroline Wozniacki and fellow Canadian Genie Bouchard prove that her success is no fluke.
A large part of that success can be attributed to her efficiency in service games, as she’s won 74 per cent of them.
If Andreescu is to win her first Premier-level WTA tournament on Sunday, she’ll need to continue to defend service games and get ahead early in matches. She’s done a great job of executing that so far at Indian Wells, winning all but one of her opening sets.
This could be particularly important because Andreescu, who at 18 is still developing endurance and conditioning, has sometimes seemed to run out of gas going into long matches.
The teenager appears to recognize that and has been applying pressure early on, as the only opening set she’s dropped in the tournament was in the Round of 128 qualifying match against Irina-Camelia Begu.
In 30 outings this year, Andreescu has lost on just three occasions and sports an impressive 27-3 record heading into her match against Kerber. Her wins are carried out in convincing fashion, too, as the Canadian has only dropped a total of eight sets in singles competitions since Jan. 1, two of them at Indian Wells.
Andreescu entered the BNP Paribas Open ranked 60th in the WTA ranking after starting the year at 152nd, a 92-spot jump for the Mississauga, Ont., native. Whether she wins against Kerber in the final or not, the Canadian is projected to rank within the top 35 by the end of the tournament.
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On the other hand, Kerber’s most significant advantage over Andreescu is experience — Andreescu was three years old when Kerber turned pro in 2003. The German has played on a big stage many times, and has won three Grand Slams, which equals the same number of Grand Slam matches Andreescu has played in her young career.
Including her Grand Slam titles, Kerber has won 12 WTA singles tournaments over the course of her 16-year career. Her most successful time as a pro was between Sept. 12, 2016 and Jan. 29, 2017, when Kerber spent 20 weeks at No. 1 in the WTA rankings, and won both the U.S. Open and Australian Open. Her most recent Grand Slam victory came at Wimbledon in 2018. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Kerber has amassed a not-too-shabby $27,446,959 in prize money, winning a little over 65 per cent of her matches (602-315) to date.
Even with all that experience, Kerber will also make her first appearance in a final at Indian Wells, so Sunday marks unfamiliar territory for both competitors.
Kerber’s campaign included a 7-6(3), 6-3 win over Venus Williams in the quarterfinal and a 6-4, 6-2 victory against World No. 23 Belinda Bencic in the semis. This will be Kerber’s first final of the year, so tennis fans can expect a historic clash on Sunday in California.
