Norway’s Casper Ruud continues his breakout season by producing a dominant display to win the San Diego Open title on Sunday.
The world No.10 was never in trouble throughout his 6-0, 6-2, win over Great Britain’s Cameron Norrie which took him just over an hour. Ruud dropped only 11 points behind his serve and converted five out of his six break point opportunities. It is the first time he has won an ATP title on a hardcourt. The Clinical victory was achieved in front of tennis great Rod Laver who presented Ruud with his trophy during the trophy presentation.
“Special thanks to Rod, obviously the legend. I think you need to come to all my matches now because I’m playing really good when you come and watch,” the Norwegian jokes. “I hope you will come to Indian Wells next week to watch, so let’s see [what happens there]!”
In San Diego Ruud dropped just one set in four matches played. Prior to Norrie, he also scored wins over former ATP Finals champion Grigor Dimitrov, Lorenzo Sonego and former world No.1 Andy Murray.
The triumph is the fifth title Ruud has won this season which is more than any other player on the ATP Tour. Earlier in the year he won a quartet of titles on the clay in Europe. Three of those were in consecutive weeks, which hadn’t been achieved by a player on the men’s Tour since Murray back in 2011.
“It’s a fun thing to say it, but obviously Daniil (Medvedev) and Novak (Djokovic) have bigger titles, so I wouldn’t mind switching up with them if I had an opportunity to switch five 250s to three Slams and a 250 Novak has,” he said. “It’s a bit higher level, but that’s fine. I think that’s more impressive obviously than five 250s, but I will take it. It would be fun to end the year with the most titles, I cannot lie about that.”
Ruud is now five out of five when it comes to finals played this year. As a result of his surge in success, he is in with a chance of sealing a spot in the ATP Finals later this year. He has now risen to eighth in the race which is the final qualifying spot for the event. However, in theory he is seventh as Nadal is ranked higher but will not be competing due to injury.
Heading into Indian Wells Ruus has won 47 ATP Tour matches so far this season. Only Daniil Medvedev (48) and Stefanos Tsitsipas (51) have won more than him.
