{"id":532790,"date":"2026-01-21T18:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T18:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/532790\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T18:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T18:54:12","slug":"australian-open-day-5-womens-predictions-including-anisimova-vs-siniakova","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/532790\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Open Day 5 Women&#8217;s Predictions Including Anisimova vs Siniakova"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The second round wraps up on Day 5 of the Australian Open. We have 16 women\u2019s singles matches on deck to decide who reaches Round 3. As always, our writers at LastWordOnTennis share their thoughts on the matches. We split the 16 matches between four articles. In addition to this article, the others feature <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2026\/01\/21\/australian-open-day-5-womens-predictions-swiatek-bouzkova\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Iga Swiatek vs Marie Bouzkova<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2026\/01\/21\/australian-open-day-5-womens-predictions-osaka-cirstea\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Naomi Osaka vs Sorana Cirstea<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2026\/01\/21\/australian-open-day-5-womens-predictions-keys-krueger\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Madison Keys vs Ashlyn Krueger<\/a>. Predicting these matches are Nurein Ahmed, Zain Mustafa, and Jordan Reynolds. Who do you think will advance to Round 3?<\/p>\n<p>Australian Open Day 5 Women\u2019s Predictions<br \/>\nElena Rybakina vs Varvara Gracheva<\/p>\n<p>Nurein:<br \/>Rybakina was clean as a whistle in her opening match against Juvan. She had to be patient because it was a tight straight sets win. Gracheva is a natural ball striker on this surface, but relies so much on timing and rhythm and Rybakina will easily expose her limits.<br \/>Prediction: Rybakina in 2<\/p>\n<p>Zain:<br \/>Across the four sets these two have played against each other coming into this match, Varvara Gracheva has won only six games. While her rally tolerance can make things tricky at times, there is little reason to believe that an in-form Elena Rybakina, arriving with strong confidence, should struggle here.<br \/>Prediction: Rybakina in 2<\/p>\n<p>Jordan:<br \/>Gracheva rarely plays well for an entire match. That spells doom for her against someone of Rybakina\u2019s quality. The WTA finals champion will likely win comfortably even if Gracheva produces a few moments of magic.<br \/>Prediction: Rybakina in 2<\/p>\n<p>Julia Grabher vs Anna Kalinskaya<\/p>\n<p>Nurein:<br \/>Grabher scored a shocking win against Hobart champion Cocciaretto, who looked out of energy when the match went the distance. But she will play a sharper opponent in the second round. Kalinskaya plays assertive tennis and when is on the front foot, I don\u2019t expect Grabher to get a route back into the match.<br \/>Prediction: Kalinskaya in 2<\/p>\n<p>Zain:<br \/>While Julia Grabher did well to come through a three-set battle in her first match, Anna Kalinskaya represents a significant step up in opponent quality. The Russian\u2019s serve and backhand aggression should be too much to handle for an opponent who generally does her best work on slower clay courts.<br \/>Prediction: Kalinskaya in 2<\/p>\n<p>Jordan:<br \/>The conditions suit Kalinskaya\u2019s game perfectly. Grabher\u2019s win against the recent Hobart International champion Elisabetta Cocciaretto was one to be proud of, but she will probably need to be even better here. I do not think that is a challenge the Austrian can meet.<br \/>Prediction: Kalinskaya in 2<\/p>\n<p>Paula Badosa vs Oksana Selekhmeteva<\/p>\n<p>Nurein:<br \/>When Badosa imposes herself physically and emotionally in match, she plays her best tennis. Unfortunately, we didn\u2019t see that in the past two years because of persistent injuries. So far, she doesn\u2019t have any physical concerns that could derail her campaign, and she should be the favorite to progress.<br \/>Prediction: Badosa in 2<\/p>\n<p>Zain:<br \/>Oksana Selekhmeteva\u2019s lefty angles were on full display in the first round, but against a solid baseliner and counterpuncher like Paula Badosa, it is quite likely that her journey <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/category\/australian-open\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">in Melbourne<\/a> comes to an end.<br \/>Prediction: Badosa in 2<\/p>\n<p>Jordan:<br \/>I think last year\u2019s semifinalist will be the victim of an upset here. Selekhmeteva was outstanding in the final set against Ella Seidel, and has a game that can disrupt Badosa\u2019s aggression. The Spaniard is also prone to throwing in a bad performance when coming back from repeated injury issues like she had last year.<br \/>Prediction: Selekhmeteva in 3<\/p>\n<p>Amanda Anisimova vs Katerina Siniakova<\/p>\n<p>Nurein:<br \/>Siniakova brings variety and will try and throw Anisimova off her game with all sorts of tricks. I don\u2019t think the American will take the bait. Anisimova\u2019s game is very direct and firm, and if she steps in and takes the ball early, she won\u2019t easily let this match drift.<br \/>Prediction: Anisimova in 2<\/p>\n<p>Zain:<br \/>Amanda Anisimova is one of the players <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/12\/23\/amanda-anisimova-will-be-a-force-to-reckon-with-in-2026\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">who can genuinely contend for the title<\/a> here, having made the finals of the last two Majors she has played. While Katerina Siniakova\u2019s unique playstyle can trouble some opponents, Anisimova simply has too much firepower in this matchup to not come out on top.<br \/>Prediction: Anisimova in 2<\/p>\n<p>Jordan:<br \/>Siniakova only dropping three games in her opening match is unlikely to make much difference here. Anisimova\u2019s massive hitting will be too much for the Czech if she is anywhere near her best. An upset is very unlikely.<br \/>Prediction: Anisimova in 2<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: Mike Frey-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The second round wraps up on Day 5 of the Australian Open. We have 16 women\u2019s singles matches&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":500163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[32349,224480,62212,168317,235812,232740,234319,2766,155521,47202,47203,8646,8647,236076,236077,60890,224481,62,1464,1474,1475,67,132,68,15061,15062],"class_list":{"0":"post-532790","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-amanda-anisimova","9":"tag-amanda-anisimova-predictions","10":"tag-anna-kalinskaya","11":"tag-anna-kalinskaya-predictions","12":"tag-australian-open-day-5-predictions","13":"tag-australian-open-predictions","14":"tag-australian-open-womens-predictions","15":"tag-elena-rybakina","16":"tag-elena-rybakina-predictions","17":"tag-julia-grabher","18":"tag-julia-grabher-predictions","19":"tag-katerina-siniakova","20":"tag-katerina-siniakova-predictions","21":"tag-oksana-selekhmeteva","22":"tag-oksana-selekhmeteva-predictions","23":"tag-paula-badosa","24":"tag-paula-badosa-predictions","25":"tag-sports","26":"tag-tennis","27":"tag-tennis-picks","28":"tag-tennis-predictions","29":"tag-united-states","30":"tag-unitedstates","31":"tag-us","32":"tag-varvara-gracheva","33":"tag-varvara-gracheva-predictions"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}