Caroline Garcia vs Elena Gabriela Ruse Prediction, Expert Picks, Odds, H2H, 4/19/24

Our second WTA preview for Friday comes from the smaller 250 Open Capfinances Rouen Metropole with Jon Reid’s Garcia vs Elena Ruse prediction.

Ruse’s being given just a 27.8% chance to win, while Garcia is favored to win at 1.33 odds. The handicap is 4.5 games and the total games line is 21.

Garcia vs Gabriela  Ruse Prediction: Ruse More Live to Pull Off Upset Than Odds Suggest

• Prediction: Ruse +1.5 sets & Ruse to win
• Best Odds: 1.93 & 3.60
• Bookmaker: Pinnacle
• Stakes: 2/10 & 1/10

Odds as of 1:00 am UK Time on April 19th, 2024. Odds may now differ.

After nearly breaking into the top 50 a few years back, Ruse has had both physical troubles and struggles on the court with her play. Her explosive style can go errant at times and she’s been lost in the wilderness for quite some time. Her recent play gives me reason to believe in her again though, and she’s coming up against a tough player, but one she plays similarly too, minus having the big serve.

I don’t hate the over 2.5 sets market here either, with these two both being very streaky players. I would not be surprised if the match went over 21 games, but would be very surprised if it did so in two tight sets, rather than three. It’s also why I’ve gone for the set handicap rather than the games, as one poor set as Ruse is prone to throw out there could ruin the game handicap, even if this goes to a deciding set. MyGarcia vs Ruse prediction is for Ruse to win a set & Ruse to win the match.

Plenty of other WTA previews are available now on our expert insights page.

Caroline Garcia Recent Form

I don’t think there’s a player where form is more irrelevant than Garcia. She can lose seven times in 10 matches and then go deep in any given week. That’s because if she’s landing her first serve enough one week, it can take her far. She also tends to play a lot of close matches, thanks to the fact that she’s super aggressive on return and kind of caps how many points she can win in her opposition’s service games.

Throw in patches of error-prone play and you can understand why every match is its entity with her (even more so than for other players).

This is her second quarterfinal appearance of 2024 (after Miami a few weeks ago), with a string of six straight tournaments of going out in her first or second match before that.

Beating Anna Karolina Schmiedlova means very little in 2024 and her win against Elisabetta Cocciaretto was as expected against a less powerful opponent. Three sets with one she dominated when she hit her spots, another that was poor and riddled with errors, and the third that was tight and saw her sneak by the Italian.

Elena Gabriela Ruse Recent Form

I don’t want to overreact to a few matches, but it certainly feels like Ruse is starting to play close to her best tennis again.

She only played once in February (and was dismissed easily), but she started to show patches of stronger form in March and has looked very good this week. I’m aware that the quality of competition isn’t near the level she’ll play on Friday, but her first serve has worked decently so far and with Garcia playing up on the baseline and hamstringing herself on return against decent serves, if she can continue to land that first delivery in the 60-65% range, she has a very good chance to keep things close.

She plays a similarly aggression-or-bust type of game too, so it should be interesting to see how she approaches games on return.

I think the talent is there to make Ruse more competitive than the market is indicating, and with her form finally starting to be a bit more reassuring, I’ll trust that ability at odds over 3.00.

Caroline Garcia vs Elena Gabriela Ruse H2H – Stat of the Match

The only time these two met was five years on the grass in Nottingham. Garcia won that match in three sets, but Ruse was just a few points from victory in the second set in that one.

Not that it matters much anyway given it was on a different surface, before Garcia altered her return positioning and happened five years ago.

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