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Maria has trouble with aggressive players

Last week Maria was for the first time in her life a first seed on a tournament. She passed the first round as was expected, but then Torro gave her a lesson in game strength. Riske is also an aggressive player

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This season, thanks to combinations of ITF and WTA tournaments, Maria reached the ranking of her career. She took an ITF level title, added one finals, semi-finals, and scored eight WTA wins. Her progress is obvious, but we can't say that it's something spectacular. Despite the 34 wins this season.

So far she left the best impression in Miami, where she played the third round from qualifications. She beat Vinci and Bouchard in the main draw, lost tightly to Bencic in two sets. Those two wins seem big at first, maybe even surprising, but when we know what kind of a season those two players have, then the surprise doesn't seem that big. Somehow that was the part of the season where Maria offered the most, but in the last two months she doesn't have such big results.

She has six wins on grass this year, but half of them are from qualifications. She beat Siniakova in Hertogenbosch, and Jovanski and Dun on Wimbledon. But those are not wins with a strong impression, a big surprise. Moreover, they're not that at all because Maria was the favorite in all three matches. Last week she played in Bastad where she lost to Putintseva convincingly in the first round. The latter is in excellent shape lately, she played a very good tournament, and she won half of the points on the serve (30/60) against Maria.

Last week in Florianapolis aria for the first time in her career had the title of the first seed of the tournament. She earned the second round by beating Alves, as was expected, but then she hit a cold shower with Torro in the second round. Torro dominated from the start to the finish of the match, imposed her strength, her serve, and forced Maria to a passive game behind the base line. That's not a good introduction for Stanford. She's up against Riske, a player with the same profile as Torro, and they're playing on a fast court where a strong serve and strong hits do really well.

Last season Riske took a big step. For the first time she ended the year as a Top 50, and the brightest moment of her career happened at the end of the season. She won her first WTA title in Tianjin where she beat Lepchenko and Bencic. It was the American's impressive edition because she's been winning the whole week without a lost set. She did very well in China, especially because a couple of weeks before that in Wuhan she beat Errani.

- It's a big pleasure to win your first WTA title, especially when I played so well, and I came to China alone. That's what makes the success even bigger. I hope I will continue the new season with such good matches - said Riske after her first WTA title.

But this season didn't take off from where it stopped in the last. In Hobart on the second tournament of the season, she tied three wins, and then on the following 10 tournaments she didn't tie a single win. True, Riske had an uncomfortable draw on most of the tournaments, but surely the impression was bad as well. By coming to clay, her game came back as well. She herself pointed out that she likes that court, and in Nottingham she played the semi-finals where she lost to Konjuh in two sets. She had an uncomfortable draw in Mladenovic and Safarova. She tightly lost against Bouchard, and it's interesting that in all three matches she was the mild favorite.

Last year after Wimbledon she tied wins only in New Haven, as for American and Canadian performances. She doesn't have a lot of points to defend and she can surely rise when it comes to the ranking. She didn't perform five years in Stanford when she lost in the qualifications. Now she's up against Maria in the main draw. Riske can impose her game and outplay her. Especially in Stanford's fast conditions.