Casper Ruud is into the third round of the Mutua Madrid Open after beating world number 20 Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-1, 6-4.
Ruud, who is currently at a career ranking high of 22 in the world, produced 15 winners while the Montreal native hit 27 unforced errors during their 93-minuite encounter. The Norwegian comes into the Masters event in good form after reaching the quarter-finals of better at his four previous tournaments. Three of which were on the clay.
“I’m very happy. I take all the Masters 1000 wins I can get. It’s not everyday that we play these tournaments so every match is important,” Ruud told Tennis TV.
“I think it was a great match from my side today. I played very solid and steady. The conditions are differnt to many other clay courts with the high bounce and altitude.”
The first two games of the match were long with both players getting off to a slow start, facing early pressure to hold serve. Ruud was the first to earn a break point of the match at 2-1. He won another two chances to break as the Canadian was hitting balls all over the court but his accuracy lacked and on his third chance he broke after Auger-Aliassime sent a ball long.
After consolidating the break the world number 22 had a chance to go up a double break and converted before serving out the first set at the loss of just one game.
The second set was a much tighter affair with Ruud once again getting the first opportunity to break as the Canadian was struggling to get his shots in.
Auger-Aliassime saved both but the Norwegian kept coming. At 3-3 he would make the breakthrough before earning match points on the Canadian serve at 5-3 but the world number 20 was up to the task of saving them. Ruud would eventually serve it out to set up his a clash with the winner of the match between Yoshito Nishioka and Filip Krajinovic.
“I have been working a lot of my serve recently. So it’s nice to see that it’s coming together a bit,” Said Ruud who won 78% of his first service points.“Maybe in my next match it could be the other way round but hopefully I can keep my serve high.’
“I enjoy serving here (in Madrid). It gives me a bit more speed and bounce. I feel comfortable and I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s match.”
