Elena-Gabriela Ruse (born 6 November 1997) is a Romanian

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

player. She has career-high

WTA rankings The WTA rankings are the ratings defined by the Women's Tennis Association, introduced in November 1975. Iga Świątek is the current world No. 1. Ranking method The WTA rankings are based on a rolling 52-week, cumulative system. A play ...

of 51 in singles and 55 in doubles. She won her maiden

WTA Tour The WTA Tour is a worldwide top-tier tennis tour for women organized by the Women's Tennis Association. The second-tier tour is the WTA 125K series, and third-tier is the ITF Women's Circuit. The men's equivalent is the ATP Tour. WTA Tour tourna ...

singles title at the 2021 Hamburg European Open. She has also won six singles and ten doubles titles on the ITF Circuit.

Junior career

2012–2015

Ruse won two junior singles titles and eight junior doubles titles. The biggest title of her junior career was the Grade-1 Canadian Open Junior Championships, where she beat

Katie Swan Katie Swan (born 24 March 1999) is a British tennis player. Personal life Swan was born in Bristol, to parents Nicki and Richard. Whilst on holiday in Portugal when she was seven, she took tennis lessons. Her teacher had once played for Portug ...

in the final. Ruse also reached the semifinals of the 2014 Wimbledon girls' singles event in 2014 and the final of Eddie Herr. On the

ITF Junior Circuit The ITF Junior Circuit is the premier level for worldwide competition among under-18 junior tennis players. Founded in 1977 with only nine tournaments, the 2011 ITF Junior Circuit offered over 350 tournaments in 118 countries. Mirroring the ATP an ...

, she had a career-high combined ranking of 7, achieved on 18 May 2015.

Professional career

2015–2016: Rise up the rankings, WTA Tour debut

When Ruse finished her junior career, she still did not have a professional ranking. In July 2015, Ruse made her

main-draw debut as a wildcard at the Bucharest Open in the doubles event, partnering

Jaqueline Cristian Jaqueline Adina Cristian (born 5 June 1998) is a professional tennis player from Romania. Cristian has career-high WTA rankings of 58 in singles and 168 in doubles. Up to date, she has won ten doubles and ten singles titles on tournaments of t ...

. She also received a wildcard into the qualifying draw in singles at the same tournament and beat

Alexandra Cadantu Alexandra () is the feminine form of the given name Alexander (, ). Etymologically, the name is a compound of the Greek verb (; meaning 'to defend') and (; GEN , ; meaning 'man'). Thus it may be roughly translated as "defender of man" or "prot ...

in the first round. She lost her next match to

Maria Sakkari Maria Sakkari ( gr, Μαρία Σάκκαρη, ; born 25 July 1995) is a Greek professional tennis player. She has been ranked as high as world No. 3 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA), which she first achieved on 21 March 2022, making her ...

. She reached semifinals at $10k events in Bucharest and Antalya. In December 2015, Ruse won her first professional singles title at Antalya, beating

Ekaterine Gorgodze Ekaterine Gorgodze ( ka, ეკატერინე გორგოძე, tr, ; born 3 December 1991) is a Georgian professional tennis player. Gorgodze has won two doubles titles on the WTA Tour and also four doubles titles on the WTA Challe ...

in the final. She finished 2015 with a year-end ranking of No. 642 in singles and No. 575 in doubles. In January 2016, she qualified for the $25k event in Sunrise, beating former top-30 player

Laura Robson Laura Robson (born 21 January 1994) is a British former professional tennis player. She debuted on the ITF Junior Circuit in 2007, and a year later won the Junior Wimbledon championships at the age of 14. As a junior, she also twice reached th ...

along the way, and reached the quarterfinals. After that event, she won ten singles matches and eight doubles matches in a row and won two singles and two doubles titles at $10k events in Antalya. In March, Ruse reached two straight finals at $10k events in Hammamet, Tunisia. She lost the first one to

Claudia Giovine Claudia Giovine (; born 18 July 1990) is an inactive Italian tennis player. She has won 12 singles and 26 doubles titles on tournaments of the ITF Women's Circuit The ITF Women's World Tennis Tour, previously known as the ITF Women's Circuit, ...

in straight sets, snapping her 14-match winning streak in singles, and in the second one she beat

Julia Grabher Julia Grabher (born 2 July 1996) is an Austrian tennis player. Grabher has won one singles title on the WTA Challenger Tour, along with eleven singles and eight doubles titles on the ITF Women's Circuit. On 26 December 2022, she reached her bes ...

. At the end of April, Ruse qualified for a $25k event in Chiasso, Switzerland and reached the semifinals, where she lost to fellow qualifier

Amanda Carreras Amanda Carreras (born 16 May 1990) is a British tennis player from Gibraltar. Carreras has won 11 singles and 15 doubles titles on the ITF Circuit. On 24 April 2017, she reached her best singles ranking of world No. 236, and peaked at No. 279 ...

. After taking time off for her high school graduation, Ruse returned to competition in June at the $50k event in

Essen Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and D ...

, Germany. As the last direct acceptance, Ruse shocked top seed

Aliaksandra Sasnovich Aliaksandra Aliaksandraŭna Sasnovich ( be, Аляксандра Аляксандраўна Сасновіч; born 22 March 1994) is a Belarusian tennis player. She has won eleven singles and seven doubles titles on the ITF Circuit. She has rea ...

in three sets for her first win over a top-100 player. Due to rain delays in Essen, she had to play her second-round match the same day and lost in straight sets to qualifier

Olga Sáez Larra Olga Sáez Larra (; born 18 September 1994) is a Spanish former tennis player. Sáez Larra has career-high WTA rankings of 231 in singles and 356 in doubles. In her career, she won 11 singles and 14 doubles titles at tournaments of the ITF Women ...

2018-2019: Grand Slam singles debut at Wimbledon, first WTA doubles final

Ruse qualified for her Grand Slam main-draw debut at the

2018 Wimbledon Championships The 2018 Wimbledon Championships was a Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Slam tennis tournament which took place at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London, United Kingdom. The main tournament began on Monday, 2 July 2018 and ...

. She reached her first WTA tournament final at the

2019 Bucharest Open The 2019 BRD Bucharest Open was a tennis tournament played on outdoor clay courts. It was the sixth edition of the tournament and part of the International category of the 2019 WTA Tour. It was held from 15 to 21 July 2019 at the Arenele BNR in ...

, partnering again with Jaqueline Cristian; they were defeated by

Viktória Kužmová Viktória Kužmová (; born 11 May 1998) is a Slovak professional tennis player. She has been ranked as high as No. 43 in singles and No. 27 in doubles in the world by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA). Kužmová has won three WTA doubles ti ...

and

Kristýna Plíšková Kristýna Plíšková (; born 21 March 1992) is an inactive Czech professional tennis player. Plíšková has won one singles and four doubles titles on the WTA Tour, as well as nine singles and eight doubles titles on the ITF Circuit. On 31 Ju ...

in the championship match.

2021: Maiden WTA title, top 100 debut

Ruse won her maiden WTA Tour singles title at the

Hamburg European Open The Hamburg European Open (formerly ''German Open Tennis Championships'') is an annual tennis tournament for professional players held in Hamburg, Germany and part of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Tour. Before 2021, it was a mal ...

, defeating

Andrea Petkovic Andrea Petkovic (, ; born 9 September 1987) is a German former professional tennis player. Born in Tuzla, SFR Yugoslavia, to Serbian father Zoran and Bosniak mother Amira, she moved to Germany at six months old and turned professional in 2006 a ...

in the final. As a result of this successful run, she climbed 65 positions and entered the top 150 in singles at a new career-high of world No. 133. Following her run in Hamburg, Ruse reached a second consecutive final later that month, at the Palermo Open; however, she lost it in straight sets to

Danielle Collins Danielle Rose Collins (born December 13, 1993) is an American professional tennis player. She has reached career-high WTA rankings of No. 7 in singles and world No. 86 in doubles. Collins has won two WTA Tour singles titles, at the 2021 Palerm ...

. She made her US Open debut as a qualifier, but lost in the first round to

Markéta Vondroušová Markéta Šimková ( née Vondroušová; ; born 28 June 1999) is a Czech professional tennis player. She has a career-high ranking of world No. 14 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA). Vondroušová finished runner-up at the 2019 French Open, ...

. She reached another new career-high of No. 83 in the world on 18 October 2021, and finished the year ranked No. 85.

Performance timeline

''Only main-draw results in WTA Tour, Grand Slam tournaments, Fed Cup/Billie Jean King Cup and Olympic Games are included in win–loss records.''

Singles

''Current through the 2022 Transylvania Open.''

Doubles

WTA career finals

Singles: 2 (1 title, 1 runner-up)

Doubles: 1 (runner-up)

ITF Circuit finals

Singles: 9 (6 titles, 3 runner–ups)

Doubles: 19 (10 titles, 9 runner–ups)

Top 10 wins

Notes

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ruse, Elena Romanian female tennis players 1997 births Living people Tennis players from Bucharest