lurker2025
Hall of Fame
Two players who are often maligned for not being talented enough for the heights they have achieved. I was inspired by the thread on Fritz and Zverev. Ruud seems to be declining over the past year since his parasite at the 2024 Roland Garros with the exception of his Madrid title while De Minaur has stepped his game up. Ruud holds an obvious advantage in terms of career achievements with three slam finals, a masters title, two masters final and a runner up finish at the Atp final to De Minaur's single masters final and 5 slam quarterfinals. It is often argued that Ruud's results at slams are inflated due to him facing only a top 10 opponent in his run to three slam finals but he still beat some tough opponents outside of the top 10 like Cilic, Kachanov and Berrettini against whom De Minaur has a negative head to head record so far. De Minaur leads the head to head against Ruud 2 to 0 and he has 3 Atp 500 titles to Ruud's one and he is also far less likely than Ruud to be upset against lower-ranked players. Ruud even has a better win rate against players in the top 20 to top 50 than he has against players outside of the top 50. Their win-loss records are similar with Ruud holding a slight advantage but this metric is likely to end up with the advantage going to De Minaur if Ruud's decline continues. Ruud has 13 titles to De Minaur's 10 but De Minaur is more likely than Ruud to win other titles if Ruud's current form continues. They have a similar amount of top ten wins with Ruud leading 19 to 18. What does De Minaur need to do to surpass Ruud's career and what can Ruud do to overturn his drop in form? Might we we end up with a situation where De Minaur is the better player but Ruud has the better career?
