{"id":62277,"date":"2023-12-31T11:06:20","date_gmt":"2023-12-31T16:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=62277"},"modified":"2023-12-31T11:06:20","modified_gmt":"2023-12-31T16:06:20","slug":"united-cup-day-4-predictions-including-casper-ruud-vs-borna-coric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2023\/12\/31\/united-cup-day-4-predictions-including-casper-ruud-vs-borna-coric\/","title":{"rendered":"United Cup Day 4 Predictions Including Casper Ruud vs Borna Coric"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The United Cup has produced much high-quality tennis so far, and Day 4 is unlikely to be any different. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2022\/09\/12\/carlos-alcaraz-casper-ruud-3-keys\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">2022 US Open runner-up Casper Ruud<\/a> is set to be in action again, with Team Norway needing a win to stay in the competition after losing their opening tie. By contrast, this is Croatia&#8217;s first tie of the event. As always, we at LWOT have predictions for all the United Cup matches. But which teams and players do you think will win?<\/p>\n<h2>United Cup Day 4 Predictions<\/h2>\n<h4>Malene Helgo vs Donna Vekic<\/h4>\n<p>Head-to-head: First meeting<\/p>\n<p>Vekic is seeking to start this year well after her results fell away towards the end of last season. The first half of the Croat&#8217;s 2023 season was very strong, including a run to the quarterfinal of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/australian-open\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Australian Open<\/a>. She starts as a clear favourite against Helgo. The Norwegian is currently ranked #539 in the world, and her highest ever ranking is ##317. In addition, Helgo has been most comfortable on clay throughout her career. It would be a huge shock if she toppled the big-hitting Vekic on her favourite surface at the United Cup.<br \/>\n<em>Prediction: Vekic in 2<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"_LLWPnYMTLpJXdEu7WeStQ\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1891285633\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'_LLWPnYMTLpJXdEu7WeStQ',sig:'XikYZIFMZx4fAsv5vp6w3czVNjF7IubnBC4MRwSzjRY=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1891285633',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h4>Casper Ruud vs Borna Coric<\/h4>\n<p>Head-to-head: Coric 1-0 Ruud<\/p>\n<p>Ruud looked strong during his singles win against Tallon Griekspoor in Norway&#8217;s opening tie. Aside from a great run to the French Open final, 2023 was slightly underwhelming by Ruud&#8217;s extremely high standards, and he will be looking to make a mark from the start of this season. This is Coric&#8217;s first match since the US Open first round. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurosport.com\/tennis\/atp-cincinnati\/2022\/stefanos-tsitsipas-v-borna-coric-cincinnati-masters-final-live_sto9096083\/story.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The 2022 Cincinnati Masters champion<\/a> will have to be very good from the start of his comeback to beat Ruud. He did beat the Norwegian in their only meeting in 2019, but Ruud is a very different player now. His consistency is likely to overwhelm the returning Coric at the United Cup.<br \/>\n<em>Prediction: Ruud in 2<\/em><\/p>\n<h4>Ulrikke Eikeri\/Casper Ruud vs Donna Vekic\/Ivan Dodig<\/h4>\n<p>Ruud and Eikeri came close in their doubles battle against the Netherlands, losing two very tight sets. This one is likely to be a close battle too. The Norwegians have the class of Ruud on their side, but Dodig is a seven-time Grand Slam doubles champion across men&#8217;s and mixed doubles. Eikeri also reached the final of the French Open in mixed doubles in 2022. It is a tough one to call, but Croatia get a slight edge in this United Cup doubles battle. If the contest becomes close, the experience of 38-year-old Dodig on the doubles court could make the difference in the end.<br \/>\n<em>Prediction: Vekic\/Dodig in 10-point tiebreak<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo Credit: Susan Mullane-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The United Cup has produced much high-quality tennis so far, and Day 4 is unlikely to be any different. 2022 US Open runner-up Casper Ruud is set to be in action again, with Team Norway needing a win to stay in the competition after losing their opening tie. By contrast, this is Croatia&#8217;s first tie [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4708,"featured_media":58385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[346,17408,811,15415,1248,16038,1626,41781,18450,18451,2373,2369,13436,16300,18442],"class_list":["post-62277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-predictions","tag-borna-coric","tag-borna-coric-predictions","tag-casper-ruud","tag-casper-ruud-predictions","tag-donna-vekic","tag-donna-vekic-predictions","tag-ivan-dodig","tag-ivan-dodig-predictions","tag-malene-helgo","tag-malene-helgo-predictions","tag-tennis-picks","tag-tennis-predictions","tag-ulrikke-eikeri","tag-ulrikke-eikeri-predictions","tag-united-cup-predictions"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4708"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}