Schiavone needs to overcome winless record to defeat Venus

Kim Clijsters may or may not have watched Caroline Wozniacki’s tie with Maria Sharapova yesterday, but either way Clijster’s knows she has a major rival as looks for back-to-back US Open wins.

Wozniacki’s impressive 6-3, 6-4 victory over Sharapova has seen the Dane cut to 5/4 favourite for the US Open title, and Clijsters, 7/4, will be hoping that she can produce a similar performance against Australian Sam Stosur.

The fifth seed Stosur enjoys the hard courts on which she was brought up, and fought out a final set tie-break against Elena Dementieva to secure her place in the quarter-finals.

But Stosur’s record against Clijsters is poor, a loss in Miami earlier in the year added to her winless streak over the Belgian.

Clijsters is yet to drop a set in the tournament, and having never lost a set to Stosur in the three times they’ve met, a straight sets victory looks pretty clear-cut and Clijsters is 8/11 to do so.

Francesca Schiavone faces a stern test against home crowd favourite Venus Williams, with Williams a 4/11 favourite, holding a 7-0 head-to-head record over Schiavone.

Schiavone is the reigning French Open champion and her game is certainly more suited to the clay courts, but the Italian has taken the first set in her last two ties with Williams and is 6/4 to win the first set today.

So the value of the market comes in Venus coming from a set down to win the match and she is priced at 9/2 to do so.

It’s hard to see beyond a Wozniacki Clijsters final after the form they’ve both shown and Clijsters experience may just hold the edge. See the full US Open tennis betting market here.