The cream is rising to the top in Paris. The players in the best form are advancing into the quarterfinals. Every player remaining is playing a great level of tennis, but which one will we back to make the winning ATP picks?
Friday, November 05, 2021 – 3:50 PM EDT at Court Central
The world number 8 Casper Ruud takes on the world number 4 Alexander Zverev in a must-see quarterfinal match. Ruud is 51-14 this year. Zverev is 54-13. Ruud is 5-1 on indoor hard courts this year while Zverev is an impressive 8-1. Their most recent meeting was on the ultra-quick hard court in Cincinnati where Casper Ruud won 6-1, 6-3.
Ruud has been quite efficient this tournament spending only 2 hours and 24 minutes on court. He only needed 1 hour and 7 Minutes in his impressive victory over Marcos Giron yesterday. Ruud has yet to drop a set. He scored a 6-4, 6-0 victory over Alexander Bublik in the first round. Ruud is playing the best tennis that he has played so far this year.
Alexander Zverev won his first-round match in routine fashion, beating Dusan Lajovic 6-3, 7-6. The Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov put him to the test however and Zverev escaped 7-6,6-7,6-3. Dimitrov has been playing very good tennis as of late, so one must rate this victory by Zverev highly.
Zverev has almost doubled Ruud in time on the court this tournament at 4 hours and 25 minutes.
Alexander Zverev has one of the best serves in the ATP. Or, should I say first serves? Zverev can often get timid on his second serve for fear of double faults. He will then "dink" very easy second serves and put himself at a severe disadvantage. This is something to keep an eye on if you’re watching live because it signals to the viewer that Zverev is getting nervous or unsure of himself.
Zverev has fantastic groundstrokes, but like his service, he can also get unsure of himself and revert to a sort of "pushing" form of defense. While sometimes playing defensive is the right tactic, Zverev will oftentimes do it even on balls he should be attacking. Zverev needs to be aggressive if he is going to get the best of Casper Ruud.
Ruud’s performance in this tournament has earned him a spot in the ATP finals. Ruud is the first Norwegian to ever earn a spot in the season-ending tournament reserved for the ATP’s top players. Casper Ruud is second-generation tennis professional. His father, Christian Ruud, won 5 ATP titles in his career.
Ruud plays a different style of game than Zverev. Ruud hits with an enormous amount of topspin off both his forehand and backhand side. This helps on his preferred surface of the clay. With Paris playing slower than most other indoor venues, Ruud has used the surface to his advantage. Ruud hits a powerful shot and has a big service return. He will be certain to take advantage of Zverev if he attempts to send him a weaker second serve.
Ruud spoke about his need to be aggressive on the hardcourt saying, “You have to be even faster with the legs and quicker with the steps, reacting quicker than maybe when you’re standing two, three, four meters behind the baseline.” Ruud continued by saying “It’s definitely been a challenge for me. In some practices, I’ve felt like I’ve made more mistakes than I usually do because stepping more into the court is a higher risk than staying back and playing with more topspin.”
“It’s more comfortable being aggressive than being on the defense and running around all the time. You have to try to be as aggressive as you can but for some people, it comes more naturally than others.”
Ruud has the game and mindset to be an elite hardcourt player. It is just a matter of time before he fully adapts his game and mentality to become a hard-court savant.
I like Ruud to keep it close and I think that in his current level of form he can even pull the upset here. I’m going to split this bet into two ways to attack the value on Ruud. I will put a full unit on Casper Ruud to cover the game spread of + 3.5 at the ATP odds. Because there is a stronger than 32.7% chance of winning outright, I will stake a 1/2 unit on the money line at +206.
Casper Ruud +3.5 (-114) at BookMaker *stake of 1U (visit our BookMaker Review)
Casper Ruud ML +206 at BookMaker *stake of .5U
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.