Fans of women's tennis are enthralled at the final that the WTA Brisbane tournament has delivered.
Watch the live Henin v Clijsters stream for free at bet365 > tennis > live streaming tennis
The wild card system in professional tennis is really unfair at times. Poor Nadia Petrova worked hard all year in 2009 to get a high ranking and what was her reward in Brisbane? She got a two seed and a first round match against Justine Henine, the tournament's real two seed.
Bad luck goes around and comes around on tour and Petrova got a taste of the bad kind in Brisbane as she got knocked out of the tournament a few days ago in the first round, thanks to Henin's racket.
While that is old news, what we are currently looking forward to is the final round of Brisbane since it will feature a matchup that tennis fans are absolutely ecstatic about. Henin has stuck around and her countrymen, Kim Clijsters, has made the final as well.
Both of these players were doing something else besides tennis this time last year and no one could have thought, with any kind of certainty, that we'd be able to watch these two players go head to head again.
Over the course of their whole careers, Henin leads the head to head series between the two players however it is a close rivalry at 12-10. And make no mistake about these two players: they aren't best friends and there is a genuine rivalry between them.
This isn't the Williams vs Williams rivalry where they're going to be all luvvy-duvvy at the handshake. This isn't the Hingis vs Kournikova 'rivalry' which, as Hingis pointed out, wasn't much of a rivalry based on results.
Clijsters vs Henin is a grudge match and either player can win.
Let's take a look at some odds:
Justine Henin, +125 (5/4), bet365
Kim Clijsters, -137 (about 5/7), Stan James
If you think this match is a pure coin toss then it makes sense to pick Henin as her odds are on the underdog side of EVEN. However the best way to make a pick in this match is to figure out who has been playing better and more efficiently in Brisbane.
Clijsters:
Games won in Brisbane leading up to the final: 48
Games lost in Brisbane leading up to the final: 23
Games won percentage: 67.6%
Henin:
Games won in Brisbane leading up to the final: 54
Games lost in Brisbane leading up to the final: 36
Games won percentage: 60%
As you can see by the breakdown above, Clijsters is the player that has been more efficient in reaching the final. That implies that she is playing better and it is suggests that Clijsters will be less fatigued in the final.
Due to that, our recommendation is to bet Clijsters to win the Brisbane final with Stan James at -137.
Go to Stan James to bet on WTA tennis.