The 2025 Miami Open kick-starts from its first round matches in the women’s draw as Naomi Osaka, Olga Danilovic, Linda Fruhvirtova and Polina Kudermetova take to court for their openers. Get the best predictions and tips for the day from Miami Open 2025.
Naomi Osaka vs Yulia Starodubtseva
In what will be their first meeting at this level, Naomi Osaka will take on the 108th-ranked Yulia Starodubtseva for a place in the second round.
A finalist here in 2022, Osaka is coming off successive losses at the Australian Open and Indian Wells Open with fitness concerns causing her to miss a month and a half of action. This is probably why Osaka did not look herself in Indian Wells where Camila Osorio got the better of her in straight sets.
This will be Osaka’s chance to turn things around now as she takes on Ukrainian qualifier Starodubtseva, a player who has herself not won a single main draw match for the season.
That’s also the reason why she went into her qualifiers at 8/11 to defeat Varvara Lepchenko and 11/10 to overcome Tatjana Maria. Surprisingly, Starodubtseva won them both, having come back from the loss of the first set in the opening qualifier to win the next four sets for the loss of nine games.
Against Osaka, however, Starodubtseva will have to do a lot better than she has done all season – she has an unenviable record of having featured in seven WTA tournaments before this in 2025 and won no main round matches. Osaka should coast to a win here.
Osaka v Starodubtseva Tip: Osaka to win in straight sets: 1/2
Olga Danilovic vs Hailey Baptiste
Olga Danilovic has steadily kept improving her ranking this season despite having had fitness issues around her knee. She shot to fame last year when she won the Guangzhou Open and continued her good work at the Australian Open earlier this year.
With shocks wins over Liudmilla Samsonova and Jessica Pegula in the season’s first major, Danilovic managed to reach the fourth round before Paula Badosa ended her campaign there. The issue, however, for Danilovic, since that performance is that she has won just one match since.
That came in Cluj-Napoca before Danilovic missed the entire Middle East swing. And she followed up with a first round rout at the hands of Viktoriya Tomova in Indian Wells.
That’s where USA’s Hailey Baptiste, who had defeated Danilovic in their only previous meeting came on the ITF circuit in 2020, has a chance. It’s her chance to make it to the second round of this tournament for the first time in her career in what will be fifth attempt.
Baptiste herself had begun the season with a quarterfinal appearance at the Auckland Open and then won a round in Singapore. More recently, Baptiste came through the qualifier before winning her opener against Whitney Osuigwe at the Indian Wells Open.
In short, she has had a few results going her way but it must be quickly added that Baptiste might find it difficult against a player of the quality of Danilovic.
Danilovic v Baptiste Tip: Danilovic to win: 17/20
Claire Liu vs Linda Fruhvirtova
This is an interesting battle between two players who not only are both ranked outside the top 200 but have also seen better days in their careers. Claire Liu, now 282nd in the world, has a career-best ranking of 52nd while Linda Fruhvirtova was once ranked 49th on the WTA charts but has fallen to 215th at the moment.
Liu’s issues have been to do with her fitness with the American having taken a six-month long break last season because of mental health reasons while Fruhvirtova has struggled to make her start at the highest level count over the 2023-24 period.
What’s also interesting to note is that both are coming off qualifying wins and weren’t quite the favourites in any of their matches. Fruhvirtova had it a lot tougher with bet365 offering 13/10 and 7/5 odds respectively for her matches against Rebecca Marino and Laura Siegemund but she beat them both in straight sets.
Liu was a 13/10 underdog going into her opener against Caroline Dolehide but came through in a hard-fought three-setter before clinching her place in the main draw with a straight-set win over Sara Sorribes Tormo in the second.
On paper, at their best, Linda Fruhvirtova looks to be a better pedigreed player and at 21/20, the odds look quite just too.
Liu v Fruhvirtova Tip: Fruhvirtova to win: 21/20
Elena-Gabriela Ruse vs Polina Kudermetova
This will be the first meeting between the 56th-ranked Polina Kudermetova and Elena-Gabriela Ruse who is ranked 102nd in the world.
And what’s interesting to note is that while Ruse has won just one main draw match all season while Kudermetova has already made the final in Brisbane and shocked Ekaterina Alexandrova on her way to the third round at the Indian Wells Open, bookmakers don’t have her as a very heavy favourite.
At 17/20, a Kudermetova win looks to be an excellent option to go with given that we think she should be an overwhelming favourite in this one just on the basis of the difference in their form alone.
Ruse v Kudermetova Tip: Kudermetova to win: 17/20
