Paula Badosa had been playing superb tennis in recent weeks, but she had to dig deep to beat Elena-Gabriela Ruse to advance at the 2024 US Open.
Ruse is a Romanian tennis player who has demonstrated potential more than once. The problem for her is one many players have, and it's finding her best tennis consistently.
She's very streaky, but when playing well, she's incredibly good. That's what has been happening so far in New York. She's been playing inspired tennis, winning three matches in the qualifiers without too many problems.
Then she added two more in the main draw, including one over the reigning Wimbledon champion, Barbora Krejcikova.
Badosa had been playing solid tennis in the weeks leading up to the US Open. She won the Citi Open in Washington and added solid runs in Cincinnati and at the Canadian Open in Toronto.
She arrived in New York expecting great results, and after two solid wins at Flushing Meadows, it looked likely that she could go far. However, Ruse started this match better, breaking her opponent's serve first.
Badosa found some sort of rhythm and broke back, but the match continued to be quite odd. There weren't any games in which a player didn't have a break point. Both struggled greatly with the serve, hitting their first less than 50% of the time.
In the end, Ruse took a 5-4 lead and then saved a break point en route to holding on to win the first set 6-4. The Romanian outhit Badosa in the opening set, as the Spaniard had fewer errors and fewer winners.
It was just one of those matches in which, for Ruse, everything went well. She's extremely tough to play against when she's hitting her shots. Other times, she can lose 1-6 or 0-6.
It just comes down to how she plays that day because her style of play doesn't change regardless of how things are going. The early going of the second set flipped the script a little bit.
Ruse started to miss, while Badosa came out aggressive, and after four games, it was 3-1 for the former World No. 2 player on the WTA Tour. She held serve, and it was 4-1 as she kept bombarding from the baseline.
Badosa went on to thrash her opponent in the second set, winning it 6-1 behind 12 winners and only five unforced errors. That was a far better margin than in the opening set.
The Spaniard also found an early break point in the third sit, but couldn't convert it. Ruse struggled from the baseline, committing far too many errors, and eventually, it became too much as Badosa broke for the 3-2 lead.
Ten unforced errors in five games was simply too much. Still, aggressive play does tend to pay off, and the Romanian player ranked No. 122 could break back immediately to make it 3-3.
Ruse found an incredible rhythm seemingly out of nowhere and started to pile up winners. She had a match point at 5-4 as she was pushing hard to win the match, but Badosa held to make it 5-5.
After holding her serve, Badosa played a superb game to break and take a 6-5 lead. Ruse then broke back again, so a match tie-break to 10 points had to decide the match.
Badosa started it better, taking a 4-0 lead. Even so, it remained quite competitive, but Badosa won 10-8 in the tiebreaker, winning the match 4-6 6-1 7-6(8) to reach the second week of the 2024 US Open.
Paula Badosa vs Elena-Gabriela Rusa Match Stats:
| Paula Badosa | Elena-Gabriela Ruse | |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | Aces | 2 |
| 8 | Double Faults | 3 |
| 46% | First Serve % | 44% |
| 73% (35/48) | Points Won After First Serve % | 50% (20/40) |
| 42% (24/57) | Points Won After Second Serve % | 49% (25/51) |
| 60% (6/10) | Break Point Conversion | 42% (5/12) |
| 31 | Winners | 29 |
| 26 | Unforced Errors | 40 |
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