ATP Tournament in Gstaad, 2nd round, Wednesday, 16.07.2025, 3:15 p.m.
Madrid champion Casper Ruud is back. He skipped the entire grass court season and is now playing his first official match in almost two months at the 250 tournament in Gstaad.
There he will face a local hero who has already made a name for himself on several occasions. In my Ruud Stricker tip, I believe the Münsinger native will give the tour returnee a tough match, so I’m going for the VBET Stricker win bet with a 4.5 game advantage.
Ruud is considered a surprise package on the tour. Sometimes he outplays the top players, wins major tournaments, and now even a Masters in Madrid, and then in the French Open he’s out in the second round against Nuno Borges.
After his coup in the Spanish capital, he at least made it to the quarterfinals in Rome, and yes, you can lose to Jannik Sinner. Since he was eliminated early in Paris and gave the green surface a wide berth, he was away for almost two months.
Will he be able to pick up where he left off? It won’t be easy, especially since he’s facing an opponent who isn’t a fan of long rallies. He goes full throttle on the court, prefers to take the risk of making mistakes, but also hits a lot of winners.
A match that couldn’t be more unsuitable for getting back into the rhythm. Especially since it’s clearly an away game for Ruud. After all, the world number 229, who was once ranked 88, comes from the region. Stricker was born about an hour’s drive from the venue.
And unlike Ruud, he has already played a few tournaments in Gstaad, although he has never made it past the second round. Still, he did defeat Arthur Fils here in 2023. This year, he started off with another win against a French player.
After losing the first set, he stepped it up a notch: 4-6, 6-4, 6-2, he hardly put a foot wrong on his serve, saving two break points. He won 74 percent of his service points, a strong statistic on clay.
He starts as a clear underdog against Ruud (1.23) at 4.00. The difference seems a little too clear to me.
In addition to the Stricker set win odds at 2.10, I took a look at the game handicap bets from VBET. One of the few bookmakers still offering these odds on the German market. At 4-6, 4-6, we would have lost with a set win bet, but not with a +4.5 handicap win bet.
This is offered at odds of 1.83. VBET also offers a $5 free bet before you make your first deposit. I think the Swiss player is capable of winning eight games after his successful start. The first set could be particularly tricky for Ruud after his long break. Oh, and then there’s the head-to-head match we had in 2023, the only one, mind you.
Stricker won that match, which was also played on Swiss soil, but on an indoor hard court. The final score was 6-4, 3-6, 7-6. So Ruud has been warned and, despite reaching the US Open final in 2022, he feels much more comfortable on clay.
Speaking of the US Open, Stricker also played his way into the spotlight there a year later. After surviving the qualifiers, he made it to the round of 16, defeating Stefanos Tsitsipas and Alexei Popyrin. Only Taylor Fritz was able to end the fairy tale.
His body then gave out, costing him valuable years of development in his career. Before Gstaad, he mainly played Challenger tournaments, falling short of titles, reaching the final twice and the semi-finals twice more.
He won a total of 11 out of 17 clay court matches and narrowly failed to qualify for Wimbledon. In the decisive third match, he lost to Shintaro Mochizuki.
My Ruud Stricker tip
Ruud played his last match in Paris just under two months ago. I expect him to struggle against Stricker. He plays at a fast pace, is carried by the crowd as Switzerland’s great tennis hope, and has made a good start to the tournament.
He will give his opponent a match with few long rallies, which could quickly prove fatal for the Norwegian. And consistency is definitely not Casper Ruud’s middle name, as he struggles with strong fluctuations in performance from tournament to tournament.
Therefore, my Ruud Stricker prediction is: Stricker to win (+4.5 games).
