Emma Navarro and Dayana Yastremska will be among those in second round action at the Australian Open 2025 on Thursday, January 16. Here’s the preview, predictions and tips for these matches from Melbourne.
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Emma Navarro v Xiyu Wang Preview
Head-to-Head: Navarro beat Wang in their only previous meeting that came at the previous Australian Open.
Emma Navarro would have known Peyton Stearns isn’t one to go away easily and that she would need to be at the peak of her game to get past her fellow American.
As it turned out, Navarro was forced to remain on court for three hours and 22 minutes by Stearns, got broken seven times and needed two tie-breakers to squeeze through to the second round.
It was the kind of a match you detest having this early in a tournament like this but now that Navarro has moved past that, she would hope for something less challenging. And on paper, Xiyu Wang might provide that.
At the end of the 2022 season, Xiyu Wang was 50th in the world, having hit a career-best of 49th around that time too. Her tennis looked to be on the rise but since then it has plummetted badly.
Wang has fallen to outside the top 100 this year, and while she was lucky not to need the qualifying path to make it to the main draw here, Wang will need to start winning matches more consistently.
She had come into this tournament on the back of first round losses in Auckland and Hobart but did well to turn things around against Julia Grabher in her opener here.
Starting out a 1/10 favourite, Wang beat Grabher 6-1, 7-5 to win her first main draw match since the Hong Kong Open last October.
Navarro v Wang prediction: Navarro to win in straight sets: 1/1
Dayana Yastremska v Danka Kovinic Preview
Head-to-Head: This will be the first meeting between Yastremska and Kovinic.
A semifinalist at this tournament last season, Dayana Yastremska began well this time too as she tamed Mayar Sherif in straight sets in her opener.
Yastremska, who had lost her Brisbane opener and then proceeded to make it to the quarterfinals in Hobart, came away a 6-1, 6-4 winner over Sherif to reach the second round.
And here she takes on the former world number 46 Danka Kovinic for a place in round three. Kovinic is currently outside the top 1200 but playing under the Protected Rankings rule, and an opening round win against Lulu Sun would have done her a world of good.
Kovinic was a whopping 9/1 going into the match and that was to do with the fact that she hadn’t won anything in a while – not at this level for sure.
For her to then come through 6-3, 7-5 would have been such a relief and it would have been something to cherish for the Montenegro player.
We could see a longish match here if Kovinic keeps playing the way she did last round.
Yastremska v Kovinic prediction: Over 17.5 games in the match: 4/7
