Marta Kostyuk – Elsa Jacquemo. Forecast and announcement for the Australian Open 2026 match

On January 18, Marta Kostyuk (WTA 20) will play Elsa Jacquemo (WTA 58) in the first round of the Australian Open.

The match will start at 03:30 Kyiv time.

Sport.ua together with a betting partner betting announces the upcoming match!

Marta Kostyuk

The Ukrainian has been in the news since the very beginning of this year, all because of her brilliant performance in Brisbane. Yes, Marta did not take the title, losing in the final to the world number one Aryna Sobolenko. Here I would like to talk more about the path to the final Kostyuk took, she knocked out three tennis players from the top 10, Amanda Anisimov (WTA 3), Mirra Andreeva (WTA 7) and Jessica Pegula (WTA 6), and at the start there was a victory over the experienced Putintseva.

Such a strong performance allowed the Ukrainian to climb into the top 20. I was impressed not only by the result, but also by a confident, mature game, there was no luck here, Marta was stronger than her powerful rivals.

Elsa Jacquemo

The French tennis player can hardly be called a rising star, she is 22 years old, she made a breakthrough last season, when she rose more than a hundred positions, which allowed her to establish herself in the top 100. This year, the athlete has already managed to fall three places in the world classification.

The start of the season does not look optimistic yet, Jaquemo played in Brisbane and Hobart, in both cases she immediately lost crushingly. First, she lost to the Australian Tomlyanovych – 1:6, 3:6, and then to the Polish woman French – 4:6, 0:6. It is difficult to expect a phenomenal game against such weak matches. Perhaps conclusions will be drawn from the defeats, but here we will have to play even against an opponent stronger than the previous ones.

Forecast

Tennis players are not so far from each other in the ranking, only 38 positions, and they are almost the same age, Marta is a year older. Despite this, Kostyuk is listed as an undisputed favorite by bookmakers.

Such quotes can be explained by the fact that the Ukrainian impressed in Brisbane, so a strong performance is expected from her. I would like to note the fact that tennis players have never played against each other before.

Looking ahead, I will say that in the next round, the best in this pair will play against the winner of the Putintsev pair – Haddad Maya. I agree that Marta is in brilliant form, so I am betting on her to win with a handicap of -5.5 games at 1.66.