Flavia Pennetta has been playing great the last couple of months and she had a successful tournament last year at the US Open (quarterfinals). Her current rank is a career high 10th and she could be a sleeper at Flushing Meadows this year. Her next match is against Indian tennis idol Sania Mirza.

In head to head play, Pennetta has a slight edge as she has beaten Mirza 3 times and lost twice. However, while that does make the match look like it could be pretty even, they have met 3 times on the hard court surface and Pennetta has won all three of those matches. In those three matches Mirza never won more than 4 individual games in a set and that does make her chances of advancing to the third round of the US Open appear pretty bleak.

Also, the second round of Grand Slams is usually where Mirza falls, at least of late. She hasn’t made the third round of any Slam since the 2008 Australian Open and she isn’t the type of player that really threatens a top 10 player like Pennetta.

Our recommendation is back to Pennetta when the odds come out for a straight sets victory.

[Source: http://www.crunchsports.com/category/Tennis/US-Open-2009–Sania-Mirza-vs-Flavia-Pennetta-200908310023/]