Casper Ruud told the day before this tennis sometimes exhausts, that of going from here to there, day after day, week and year after year it ends up becoming something like an endless wheel. Pure routine, endless frustration. The search for an ideal that will never arrive. “In this sport you have to learn to be a good loser,” adds Alejandro Davidovich. And lately, the Nordic weighed his profession. “Mentally I have not felt at all well,” he admits, while he says he feels much better today, thanks to the help and an adjustment of expectations: “You cannot think that you will win each tournament.” And so it is, although in Madrid the glory has been shot: 6-4 and 7-5 to Francisco cerú. Consequently, only Jack Draper (6-3 and 7-6 (4) to Lorenzo Musetti) can deprive him of her in the final of this Sunday (18.30, Teledeport and Movistar+).
Very irregular in the first third of the course, Ruud, 26 years and fifteenth, seems to have reunited the way to a good place. Logical, on the other hand, taking into account that the turn in its habitat happens, the land that feels so well and that so many joys have reported; Specifically, the titles he has obtained on a surface in which no tennis player has achieved more victories than him throughout the last five years; There are 124, for the 95 of Stefanos Tsitsipas and the 90s of Carlos Alcaraz. If he had to get up, it was here, although he had never got so far in the Magic Box. It will be his first final and are already 18 in clay, so that only Novak Djokovic, 34, counts more than him among the players who are still active; Stan Wawrinka, Alcaraz and Alexander Zverev, the three 14.
Discreet, simple and extremely professional, Ruud seems to have some cursed. He stayed at a tris of reaching number one and lost three major finals, those of Roland Garros (2022 and 2023) and the US Open (2022). He also yielded in the outcomes of other major scenarios such as Miami or Montecarlo and, despite being practically a fixed of the top-10its popularity has never been shot. He doesn’t care in excess. “It is very good that there are different personalities in the circuit. I am very quiet since I was younger, and in the end I realized that my level rises when I am fully specified in my game, no matter what people can think,” he says.
And it expands: “If I continue to strive, in the end I will be attractive to fans. I know that sport is also business and entertainment, but what I like most is to see athletes competing to the fullest. I see it so and so I will continue, keeping calm as possible.”
Rifirrafe and back
Rare that scene of the duel with cerúando, when he went to the judge’s chair and recriminate his permissiveness with some sounds that emits the stands of the Madrid center just when he is going to take out. Always restrained, he musically and expresses his discomfort: “I know you do the best you can, but say ‘please, do not do it again’ is not enough.” In any case, it resolves to the Argentine and revives. The triumph will return on Monday to the strip of the ten strongest of the circuit and on Sunday – once resolved the final between Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff, this Saturday at 18.30 – he will have the opportunity to capture his most valuable trophy.
Eleven of the twelve that has raised so far they have the frame of the clay, where all their virtues acquire greater brightness. Since 2020, no one has played more finals (17) or won more awards than him. He denies again and again to close it – spreading 15 of the 18 breaks of breakage that he faces – and disembarks in the final without having delivered a single partial along the route, in which he previously appealed to competitors such as Taylor Fritz or Daniil Medvedev. They do not stop some problems on the back. Ruud says, always applied and always in the background, which sometimes feels like a hamster on the wheel and that the system is simply the one that is, there is no choice; So he emphasizes himself and challenges himself: “It is a very human mistake not to leave the comfort zone. I still have to be better, I still have to aspire to more.”
And, indeed, you must shoot your benefits on Sunday, since you will meet Draper. The English, launched, is exhibited again in the night shift, in which the tier jelly to Musetti and ends up accepting that, at this level, English is hardly containable. “I feel that we have both played at a very high level. You have to give credit to Lorenzo, because it is very good on land. We had played in hard and grass, from Juniors I have grown with him. But on land it is a beast. So getting such a triumph at this point of the tournament means a lot for me,” says the British, accelerating and investing the curve: before landing in San Fermín, her balance was negative (10-12).
Granollers, for another bite
A. C. | Madrid
In the absence of individual stuck, Spanish tennis finds this year in Madrid the alternative of doubles. For the first time in the history of the tournament, no national representative appeared on the Eighth Poster, but in the absence of Bazas, the duo formed by Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos shines again.
The Catalan and the Argentine beat the Germans Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz (7-6 (6) and 7-5 in 1h 45m), and will play for the second time the final, then of the Madrid title in 2021. It will be the tenth in one thousand, with a balance of eight wins and only one defeat.
This Saturday (15:30) will face the Salvadoran Marcelo Arévalo and the Croatian Mate Pavic, the numbers one.
