Auger-Aliassime stopped Ruud’s winning streak: – A fantastic victory

Casper Ruud had a big problem against Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime on the red clay in Madrid and was knocked out of the ATP Masters1000 tournament in straight sets.

Tuesday 30 April at 21:04

The Canadian secured the victory with the numbers 6-4, 7-5.

– It is a fantastic victory for me. Casper has had a bit of a hold on me in the last matches we have played against each other. He has been a fantastic player for many years and his numbers show how consistently good he has been, said the 23-year-old in the victory interview.

Thus ended Ruud’s winning streak of seven straight triumphs. The last time the Norwegian went off course was in the final of the Monte-Carlo Masters, where Stefanos Tsitsipas took home the trophy.

Ruud is ranked number six in the world, while Auger-Aliassime is all the way down to 35th place in the ranking. The tennis stars had met four times previously, with three of the matches ending in favor of the Snarøya boy.

In the quarter-finals, Auger-Aliassime meets Italian Jannik Sinner.

After an evenly played start to the first set, Auger-Aliassime broke Ruud’s service game and went up to a 4-3 lead.

– Ruud becomes a little too passive there. He doesn’t get to build up the ball exchange as he wanted, and then came the first breach, commented Christian Paasche on TV 2.

The Canadian thus took a solid hold on the match when he finally served out the set for 6-4.

– Worst possible opening

Ruud didn’t get off to a good start in the second set either when he was broken in the first service game.

– It is the worst possible opening on the set. Here it’s just a matter of getting into the ring, encouraged Paasche.

The TV 2 commentator got his way, because three service games later Ruud broke back and equalized at 2-2, before going up to a 3-2 lead.

– It could be the turning point in this match for Casper Ruud. It is incredibly important, stated the TV 2 veteran.

Unfortunately for Ruud, he was broken again at 5-5, which allowed the Canadian to serve out the second set for a 7-5 victory.

Fantastic season

On the way to the round of 16, the Norwegian has knocked out Miomir Kecmanović and Cameron Norrie. Both smoked in straight sets.

Ruud is having a fantastic season, where he has 31 wins in 39 games. It is clearly the most on the ATP tour.

In Barcelona (ATP 500) last week, he took home his biggest title to date, and among experts he is considered perhaps the very roughest on clay before the Grand Slam tournament Roland-Garros at the end of May.

All of his first ten ATP titles came at the 250 level.