Norway’s Casper Ruud rallied from losing the first set to battle past Spain’s Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 3-4 (2-7) 4-3 (7-2) 4-2 3-4 (2-7) 4-1 clinching his first win at this year’s Next Gen ATP Finals at the Allianz Cloud in Milan. Ruud finished the match with 28 winners to 19 unforced errors.
Both players traded breaks at the start of the first set. Davidovich Fokina hit a forehand return winner to get an early mini-break on the first point of the tie-break. The Spanish player went up a double mini-break at 3-1 with a backhand winner and wrapped up the first set after Ruud sent a forehand wide.
The second set went on serve with no break points and came down to a second tie-break. Ruud won the tie-break 7-2 after a forehand error and a pair of missed volleys from Davidovich Fokina.
As Davidovich Fokina was serving at 0-1 0-15, he fell, while he was attempting to hit a forehand and suffered a right knee injury. Ruud broke serve in the sixth game to win the third set 4-2.
Davidovich Fokina bounced back in the fourth set by breaking serve at 1-1, but he did not convert three set points at 3-2 and dropped his serve, as he sent a backhand volley long on the deciding point. The Spanish player of Russian player won the tie-break with a forehand winner on set point at 6-2.
Ruud earned an early break in the first game and cruised through the fifth set. He closed out the match with a double break in 2 hours and 17 minutes after a backhand error from Davidovich Fokina.
“It was a lot of ups and downs and also the first five-set match that I won. It can be only a couple of points from winning or losing. Davidovich Fokina is a really strong fighter and it was a very good match. I felt sorry for him that he fell and it looked really bad. I almost thought it could be over at any point. It looked extremely bad at a certain point. Then he came back and played some unbelievable points. It was tough, because you did not really expect that. It was tough, but I think actually I got the third set. I broke at 3-2, and that was a key set to win. We played pretty well in the fourth set and he continued to play really well. The fifth set I wore him out a little. I tried to get many balls back and then he did some mistakes here and there that made me win the match”, said Ruud.
