Tennis, Casper Ruud | Ruud ready for quarterfinals in Masters 1000 for the first time:

Casper Ruud is ready for the quarterfinals of the Masters 1000 tournament in Rome after a victory over the Croatian Marin Cilic on Friday afternoon. Ruud won the match 2-0 (6-2, 7-6) in sets.

Thus, the 21-year-old is ready for his first quarterfinal in a Masters 1000 tournament.

He meets Italian Matteo Berretini in the semifinals.

– It is obviously an incredibly good feeling. It’s the first time in my career that I’m going to a quarterfinal in a Master 1000 tournament. It could not have been better that I do it here in Rome, where I have good memories from last year, says Ruud to Eurosport.

– I am of course incredibly happy and look forward to tomorrow, It will be an exciting match. Berretini is a good Italian, one of the world’s ten best players, so he is good on both hard court and gravel, but I will try to remember what I did well against him in Paris last year and take with me the confidence I have from this fight into tomorrow. I played against him just a few weeks ago, but now it is gravel, which is a slightly different surface, I get to try to use it to my advantage, says the 21-year-old.

After a first set where Ruud was superior, it was even in the second. It all had to be decided on a tie break and there Ruud finally landed an 8-6 victory.

– This is a good high heart rate, really good high heart rate. He played fantastic in the first set and then Cilic played fantastic in the second set. We see that Casper does not like the way he plays with a big serve and a ball, he does not get any rhythm, but then he manages to pull it ashore. It’s amazing how strong mentally he is out on the field there. It is absolutely incredible, says Eurosport expert Øyvind Sørvald.

Meritorious opponent

The Norwegian played almost flawlessly and won the first set with a solid 6-2. Strong against an opponent who has been ranked number three in the world.

The 31-year-old from Croatia is now ranked number 40 in the world, but in January 2018 he was as high up as a third place in the ATP ranking. The Croatian also has a Grand Slam triumph on his conscience, from the US Open in 2014.

Eurosport commentator Christer Francke was impressed by Ruud.

– We are a little surprised that Ruud is so superior to a player who has been number three in the world, and gone to the semifinals in three different Grand Slam tournaments.

Evenly second set

In the second set, the 21-year-old opened in the same track as he finished the first, but after a good start where Ruud led 1-0 and 2-1 in the game, he ended up in a bit of difficulty.

The Norwegian still did not let himself be stressed and played in an adult way against Cilic. It was an even second set and the two followed each other to 5-5. Cilic raised several notches in the second set and especially the serving of the Croatian was on a completely different level now.

When it was 6-6, the set had to be decided on a tie break.

In the tie break, it was Ruud who took the initiative and led 4-1 against the Croatian. Cilic fought back to 4-3, before Ruud again hijacked a point and was ahead 5-3.

Drama i tie break

Cilic still refused to give up and after a long and intense ball exchange at the next point, it was the 31-year-old who pulled the longest straw and it was 5-4.

However, Ruud quickly went up to 6-4 and then had two match balls. The first ended with points for Cilic and 6-5. On the second it was a back hand miss and it was 6-6.

The next two points went to Ruud and thus the match was decided.

The Norwegian won the tie break 8-6 and the match with 2-0 ((6-2, 7-6)) in sets.

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