Arantxa Rus and Elina Avanesyan meet in the round of 32 at Hamburg on Tuesday. Arantxa Rus has dropped 6 straight and sits at 2-8 over the last ten. Elina Avanesyan has won 6 of the last 10.
The two have never played — a first meeting always adds a layer of uncertainty the numbers can't fully capture.
The underlying stats are tight across the board — this is a matchup decided by a handful of points. This one is close to a coin flip, and the lean toward Rus is exactly that — a lean.