Casper Ruud

Barcelona. The Norwegian tennis player Casper Ruud won this Sunday the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell-71 Conde de Godó Trophy by beating the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas (5-7 and 3-6) in 1:29 hours, in a match in which Ruud, who He made his debut in a final in Godó, barely hesitated and beat Tsitsipas who still has not won in the RCTB-1899 and adds his fourth lost final, taking revenge for the recent final of the Monte Carlo Masters 1000 in which the Greek won.

Casper Rudd knew how to react quickly to a bad start to the final and left behind his few mistakes to focus on effective and solid tennis to physically and mentally undermine a Tsitsipas who was getting closer and closer to that wasted fourth final, in addition to coming further punished by a three-set semi-final and quarter-final.

In less than an hour and a half, Ruud reached the peak of his still nascent career. He has played and lost Grand Slam finals, such as two Roland Garros (2022 and 2023) and a US Open (2022), but he had never before been able to win any major, any Masters 1000 or any ATP 500. The one in Barcelona is the first of his career.

Despite this, the mental pressure could not overcome him. He was calm at all times on the clay of the Rafa Nadal Court and once, in the first set, he managed to break Tsitsipas’ serve in the sixth game of the match, he no longer failed. He went into “hammer hammer” mode and kept pressing until, with 5-6 for him and the Greek’s serve, he broke the serve again and added the set on the first set ball of the two he had.

The second set began with a blank game for Casper Ruud. On the other hand, Tsitsipas had a hard time making it 1-1 and did so in the tiebreaker, committing one of the four double faults he had in this final. And, on his second serve, Ruud made a break to go 1-3 and begin to tip the final in their favor.

The Greek could not recover, with several helpless smiles and a lot of talk with his father and coach, in his box. But nothing worked for him and none of his proposals, with abuse of the backhand from the back of the court, worked for him. He couldn’t get Casper Ruud out of his ideal game, out of his game plan.

Although the Greek saved his next serve despite having two break balls against him, he was unable to break his rival’s serve at any time in the second set. And Rudd, with 3-5 in his favor and service, closed the final with a blank game, taking advantage of the first of the 3 tournament balls with an unforced error by a Tsitsipas who, like the current tournament director, David Ferrer , arrives at the tennis club with 4 lost Godó finals (2018 and 2021 against Rafa Nadal, 2023 against Carlos Alcaraz and this one against Ruud).

The previous balance between the two was equal (2-2) and this Barcelona final once again broke the balance in favor of the 25-year-old Norwegian, much superior both in the baseline game and on the net, despite a start to the duel in the one in which Tsitsipas broke his first serve and went 3-1 up.

Until now, Ruud’s best performance in Barcelona was the quarterfinals he reached in 2022, with a defeat against the Spanish Pablo Carreño 6-4, 6-7[8] and 3-6. This time, he reached his first final and with solid tennis with hardly any unforced errors he defeated a more tired Tsitsipas, with more demanding matches and with more sets in his legs and arm, he lifted the champion trophy.