Paula Badosa vs Mary Stoiana Prediction 9/18/2026 Today’s Tennis Picks

Former World No. 2 Paula Badosa will face World No. 116 Mary Stoiana in the quarterfinal of the Sao Paulo Open on Friday, September 18. Here’s our Paula Badosa vs Mary Stoiana prediction. This preview will include a Paula Badosa vs Mary Stoiana pick.

Pre-match Odds: Badosa -208 / Stoiana +165

Paula Badosa vs Mary Stoiana Preview

Paula Badosa came from behind to beat Jasmin Ortenzi and reach her fourth WTA Tour quarterfinal of the season. Badosa had a slow start to the match, where she lost the first set despite leading by a break. She was a break down at the start of the second set, but the Spaniard raised her level, and Ortenzi simply could not match that intensity for the remainder of the match. Badosa won the second set with at least three breaks of serve and then comfortably raced to the finish line in the third.

In the victory, Badosa did not account for any aces, but committed 7 double faults. She landed 53% of first serves in play and won 68% of first serve points (26/38). Badosa won 50% of second serve points (17/34) and saved one of five break points. Badosa is expected to rise to 61st in the WTA rankings. She improves to 25-18 for the season.

Mary Stoiana reached her first career WTA quarterfinal at the Sao Paulo Open with a shock win over Dominika Salkova. The match took 20 games to decide. Stoiana served for the opening set at 5-4, and then had three set points on Salkova’s serve at 6-5 up, but eventually needed a tiebreak to clinch it. The American dominated the second set, breaking serve three times to ease to the last eight in 90 minutes.

In the victory, Stoiana hit 1 ace and 2 double faults. Stoiana landed 64% of first serves in play and won 57% of first serve points (20/35). She won 60% of second serve points (12/20) and saved 1 of 4 break points in the match. Stoiana had beaten Claire Liu earlier in the tournament and the 23-year-old is expected to rise to a new career-high ranking after the tournament.

Paula Badosa vs Mary Stoiana Head-To-Head

Badosa and Stoiana have never faced off at any level, so this will be their first meeting. 

Paula Badosa vs Mary Stoiana Prediction

I’m leaning toward the experienced Badosa here, although this is unlikely to be a walkover. Stoiana entered this tournament with plenty of hard-court wins and scored arguably her most impressive win over the highly-talented Dominika Salkova. Still, Badosa has better rally tolerance and has shown she can recover if things go wrong, as in that comeback win over Ortenzi.

Nur Said's Pick: Badosa in three sets