Donna Vekić cruised past #18 Liudmila Samsonova Thursday night in Melbourne, winning 6-3, 6-0 and will now play in the 3rd Round of the Australian Open. This match only lasted 66 minutes which is important as you want to keep the mileage off the legs late in Grand Slam tournaments. Vekić will now play unranked 31 year-old Spaniard Nuria Párrizas Díaz in the Round of 32. Vekić is the last Croatian player left in singles action.
Petra Martić lost in straight sets 6-3, 6-3 to #23 ranked Zhang Shuai in their 2nd Round duel. From start to finish Zhang was the better player and controlled the match. Martić will be disappointed as her next round opponent would have been an American qualifier and the road to the quarterfinals would have been a generous one.
Majer linked with psg
Is this a good move?
Any other transfers that will come to fruition?
Seems like the livakovic is slow to happen
At 10 mill or so, really seems like an overall good bargain
We Know he has his holes but was still top of the World Cup
Will dinamo realistically have anything close for a little while?
Also go vekic. She’s pretty good at tennis vs hotness scale
But you can’t tell me the Serbs wouldn’t trade djokovic for just one crack at a semi World Cup;)
Everyone knows football is life 😉
Not sure if it’s a good move. PSG has a lot of depth in midfield.
They usually start Verratti and Vitinha in those two pivot roles in the 3-4-2-1 formation. Messi and Neymar are the 2, and Mbappe is the 1.
Majer would probably battle Vitinha and Verratti for time in the central midfield (along with with two Spaniards Ruiz and Soler). Renato Sanches is also on the team, but I don’t think he plays much.
I’m not sure if Majer starts because Vitinha is 22 years old, and is a key starter for PSG, and he cost them over 40 million Euro.
Marco Verratti, although much older now at 30, plays better defense and will still likely still get starts. He just signed a new contract a few weeks ago (until 2026), so I would assume they are keeping him around to actually play.
Ruiz is no slouch either, and these Spanish NT players on the team may get preference.
However, if Messi leaves in the summer it will leave spot open and they probably change their formation a bit.
Also, statistically, Majer beats all these guys (offensively) when looking at French League passing stats.
He might flourish with guys like Neymar and Mbappe in front of him.
Majer is a tough one, because he’s elite in his passing and creativity (which is what a #10 is required to do) but he’s not so elite in the other areas.
Some teams may want a more complete box to box midfielder, and he’s more of a trigger for your guns up top.
It would be pretty amazing watching him spring Mbappe loose for goals every single game.
Unfortunate for Matric, but that is great for Vekic.
Vekić should be the favorite. If she can keep her double faults and errors down she will win.