Marin Cilic vs Casper Ruud 6/3/22 French Open Tennis Picks, Predictions, Odds

Casper Ruud and Marin Cilic meet in the semifinals of the 2022 tennis French Open.

Casper Ruud is coming off a four sets win over Holger Rune that took 39 games to decide. In the victory, Ruud won 79 percent of his first serve points and 50 percent of his second serve points. Ruud won 69 percent of his total service points and converted on five of his 17 break points. Ruud got 68 percent of his first serves in play and hit 55 winners. It wasn’t the prettiest match for Ruud and took over three hours, but the 23-year-old is enjoying his breakthrough moment on the big stage. Ruud looks to make his 12th career final appearance overall and his first ever grand slam final. A win here would put Ruud in his fourth final appearance of the year. Ruud has won nine straight matches on clay court.

Marin Cilic is coming off a five sets win over Andrey Rublev that took 53 games to decide. In the victory, Cilic won 74 percent of his first serve points and 56 percent of his second serve points. Cilic won 66 percent of his total service points and converted on two of his seven break points. Cilic got 58 percent of his first serves in play and hit 88 winners to go with 71 unforced errors. Up and down performance from Cilic, but he’s being aggressive, and he absolutely dominated the fifth set tiebreak to make a statement. Cilic looks to make his 36th career final appearance overall and his fourth grand slam final trip. Cilic has never made the final of the French Open, and he’s 3-2 in career grand slam semifinal matches. Cilic hasn’t made a grand slam final since the 2018 Australian Open. Cilic has won eight of his last 10 matches on clay court.

Ruud has won both meetings against Cilic. The matches took place in 2021 Toronto (three sets) and 2020 Rome (straight sets). 

Ruud is going to be favored because he’s been the more consistent player overall and has won both meetings against Cilic. However, Ruud is in new territory with this deep grand slam run, and his quarterfinal match was shaky. I believe if Ruud lost that third set tiebreak, he was going to lose that match. At times, Ruud presses and nerves are clearly getting the best of him. Cilic has been there done that in terms of big match success, and he’s piling up the free points despite the errors.

Cilic is a live dog yet again. We hit on him in the last match, and we’re trying it here as well.