WTA Rabat – Mayar Sherif vs Arantxa Rus

WTA Rabat – Mayar Sherif vs Arantxa Rus

🧠 Form & Context

🇪🇬 Mayar Sherif
🔥 A dominant 10–3 record on clay in 2025, including a recent title run in Parma where she didn’t drop a set.
📈 Finding her rhythm just in time for Roland Garros—has won 8 of her last 9 matches, all on clay.
🇲🇦 Loves Rabat: Reached the final here in 2024, following R16 runs in 2022 and 2023.
💪 True clay specialist: Holds a career 215–75 record on the surface. Her game—built around topspin, patience, and physicality—is tailor-made for red dirt.

🇳🇱 Arantxa Rus
⚖️ Mixed clay campaign: 10–8 on clay this season, with flashes of form but no consistent results.
🟡 Recent struggles: Disappointing loss in Trnava after battling through qualifying in Rome—momentum is lacking.
🔙 Veteran status: With 743 career match wins, Rus brings depth of experience and a tricky left-handed game.
📉 Recent Rabat struggles: Quarterfinalist in 2022, but exited in the first round last year—now faces one of the field’s most in-form players.

🔍 Match Breakdown

Their only prior meeting came in 2021, when Rus won in straight sets—but the dynamic is now very different. Sherif has blossomed into a clay-court force on the WTA tour, while Rus has been more up-and-down.

Key clay stats comparison (2025):
• Sherif: 77% win rate vs Rus: 50%
• Set 1 wins: Sherif 85% vs Rus 39%
• Last 12 months on clay: Sherif 72% win rate vs Rus 59.5%

Rus is dangerous if she’s hitting clean and shortening rallies, but Sherif’s endurance, topspin depth, and rally resilience are well-suited to the slow Rabat conditions. If Sherif gets into her groove early, she can wear Rus down with controlled aggression and physical baseline play.

🔮 Prediction

All signs point to Sherif continuing her strong Rabat run. Unless Rus finds a peak performance from the start, this should be a relatively comfortable win for the Egyptian.
🧩 Prediction: Mayar Sherif in 2 sets — combining recent title confidence with superior clay stats to secure a spot in the next round.