Renata Zarazua and Polina Iatcenko open the US Open first round on Sunday at 15:00 UTC, first on Court 6. Zarazua is ranked 71st, Iatcenko 160th and through qualifying, yet the market has priced the gap at almost nothing. They have never met.
A month of August against a week in New York
Zarazua's last convincing stretch was Memphis in late July, where her depth and variety accounted for Kessler, Maria and Zakharova. Since then the sequence reads 2-6 2-6 against Leylah Fernandez in Toronto, a qualifying loss to Yue Yuan in Cincinnati, and 6-3 3-6 0-6 against Clara Tauson in Monterrey. That is not one flat afternoon but a dip that keeps expanding into a whole set.
Iatcenko has spent the week working out these courts and these balls. She handled Julie Struplova without trouble, dropped the middle set to Lucia Bronzetti and still won 6-2 3-6 6-3, then beat Andrea Lazaro Garcia 7-5 6-1, raising her level after the rain interruption rather than losing it.
The serve gap decides the openings
Zarazua almost never earns a free point behind her delivery, and Fernandez demonstrated how relentlessly her service games can be attacked by a returner with intent. Iatcenko owns the real first serve in this pairing; her second, taken apart by Claire Liu in Cincinnati, is the genuine risk, along with the nerves of a main-draw debut.
Zarazua's slice and changes of height can unsettle a first-strike baseliner, which keeps this near a coin flip. At better than even money, the fresher and better-acclimatised player is the side worth backing.
Prediction: Polina Iatcenko to win, odds 2.151
