Two different schools..

The 28-year-old Romanian, coached by Andrei Cociasu, is a fiery player, capable of sudden bursts of brilliance on hard courts, as shown by her title at the ITF W75 in Trnava at the end of 2025. In 2026, she has a balanced record (8 wins, 7 losses) with notable successes in the Dubai qualifying rounds against Stearns and Siniaková. Her game is based on taking the ball early and being highly aggressive on the backhand, but she sometimes lacks a "Plan B" when her unforced error count skyrockets. She’s still a good server, and the conditions here tend to suit her.

She’s the player everyone is talking about at the start of 2026. The 23-year-old Croatian is experiencing a meteoric rise. Coached by Juraj Dusparic, she shocked the tour in Dubai by taking out Emma Raducanu, then benefiting from Rybakina’s retirement to reach the quarterfinals. She confirmed her form at Indian Wells by beating Jennifer Brady and, above all, former top-10 player Qinwen Zheng in straight sets. She’s a baseline attacker who likes to have a bit of time to set up her shots and is very defensive as well.

Ruse has a very straightforward game: she attacks, if it works, great; if it doesn’t, she doesn’t have many solutions and the errors pile up. Ružić clearly dominates all the 2026 stats and has an extremely varied game. If the Romanian’s first serve is shaky, she’ll get eaten alive in every other department. That said, be careful: Ružić is capable of going completely missing from one match to the next and is not yet the queen of consistency.