Casper Ruud vs Jaume Munar Prediction Australian Open Tennis Picks 1/12/25

Casper Ruud and Jaume Munar meet in the first round of the 2025 Australian Open on Sunday, January 12, 2025. Here’s our Casper Ruud vs Jaume Munar prediction. This preview also includes a Casper Ruud vs Jaume Munar pick.

Casper Ruud Preview

Casper Ruud will be playing his sixth Australian Open main draw. He has been to the second week once in his career and reached the third round when he competed last year losing to Cameron Norrie in four sets.

Ruud has started the season with two wins on Australian soil. He played at the United Cup where Norway was eliminated in the group stage. But it was still a positive week there where he beat Hubert Hurkacz and Tomas Machac.

Only one of Ruud’s 12 ATP titles has been on a hard court, but that doesn’t mean he cannot perform on this surface. He is a former US Open finalist and owns over 100 match wins on hard court in his career.

Jaume Munar Preview

Jaume Munar is ranked 61st in the ATP rankings. He has never broken into the top 50 in his career. Munar is a clay-court specialist with the bulk of his success being on clay.

He is a 10-time champion on the Challenger Tour winning nine titles on clay and one on a hard court. Munar began his preparation for the 2025 Australian Open in Hong Kong in the opening week.

The Spaniard earned some fabulous wins over Davidovich Fokina and Lorenzo Musetti to make the semifinal. There, he lost to eventual champion Alexandre Muller from a set up.

Munar will be playing in his seventh Australian Open main draw. He has won just two matches and never advanced beyond the second round in his career.

Casper Ruud vs Jaume Munar Head-To-Head

• Ruud and Munar have met four times across all levels.

• Ruud leads Munar 3-1 in their head-to-head.

• Remarkably, Munar won their only hard court meeting in Tokyo almost three years ago.

Casper Ruud vs Jaume Munar Prediction

Munar is coming off a maiden ATP semifinal on a hard court. He had no business to win that many matches before the Australian Open. We know that his skillset on this surface is extremely limited, but he’s relentless and will work his socks off to take the match to Ruud. He’s beaten him before on hard courts, so that should give him some self-assurance that he has the level to compete with him. I can still see the Norwegian winning this rather comfortably, but just not in straight sets.