An ailing Casper Ruud is out of the French Open, where the clay-court specialist was expected to contend for the championship.
Nuno Borges topped the seventh-seeded Ruud 2-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-0 on Wednesday at Roland Garros and became the first man from Portugal to advance to the third round of the French Open. Ruud, who twice reached the finals in Paris, clearly was bothered by a problem with his left knee but played through. He said he first felt the ailment in early April at the Monte Carlo Masters.
Twelve of his 13 tournament victories have come on clay.
“It’s hopefully nothing too serious,” said Ruud, a Norwegian. “For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been kind of struggling a little bit with knee pain on and off. That’s why I decided to pull out of Geneva after Rome, do my best, and heal to be ready here.”
For Borges, it was his first win against a Top 10 opponent.
Ruud said he had felt OK during practice because he could limit his movements.
“When you play a match, you go full on, no matter what happens,” Ruud said. “I don’t want to take anything away from Nuno, because I think he played a phenomenal match, a really high level.”
While both players had eight aces, Borges hit 51 winners to 21 unforced errors. Ruud’s numbers were 32 and 38, respectively.
Borges said as the match wore on, he recognized that Ruud was troubled.
“I was fighting a lot, especially that first set, I felt like I was completely drilled,” Borges said. “He really played a huge intensity, and I wasn’t handling the situation the best. It was too much for me. Then I just kept on trying and noticed he started to slow down a little bit, and obviously he wasn’t 100 percent today or I’m sure the result would not have been the same.”
Next up for Borges is a third-round meeting with Australia’s Alexei Popyrin, the No. 25 seed. He defeated Alejandro Tabilo of Chile 7-5, 6-3, 6-4.
Defending champion Carlos Alcaraz, the No. 2 seed, needed two hours, nine minutes to pull off a 6-1, 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 win over Hungary’s Fabian Marozsan. The Spanish star is 29-2 on clay since last May and on Wednesday became the first player born this century to achieve 20 wins at Roland Garros.
“It was a great, great match,” Alcaraz said. “I played well in the first set. I had really high confidence. In the second set he started to play much better, really aggressively and didn’t miss at all. It was a little bit difficult dealing with his game in the second set but I was pleased to stay strong and refresh in the third set and I started to play better and better. I had a really good last two sets.”
In the third round, Alcaraz will face Damir Dzumhur of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who topped Frenchman Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, the No. 31 seed, 7-6 (4), 3-6, 4-6, 6-4.
Also advancing: No. 8 seed Lorenzo Musetti of Italy, a three-set winner over Colombia’s Daniel Elahi Falan; No. 10 Holger Rune of Denmark, a three-set winner over American wild card Emilio Nava; No. 13 Ben Shelton, who won in a walkover; and No. 15 Frances Tiafoe in three sets over Spain’s Pablo Carreno Busta.
No. 12 Tommy Paul dropped the first two sets before rallying for a five-set win over Hungary’s Marton Fucsovics, who led 5-3 in the fourth set and was two points from victory. Paul won for the second time in his career when down two sets to none.
No. 23 Sebastian Korda downed Jenson Brooksby in three sets in an all-American match. No. 24 Karen Khachanov of Russia defeated Austria’s Sebastian Ofner in five sets.
Italian qualifier Matteo Gigante knocked out No. 20 seed and 2021 finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece 6-4, 5-7, 6-2, 6-4.
Serbian Hamad Medjedovic also forged on, as did Daniel Altmaier of Germany, Quentin Halys of France and Mariano Navone of Argentina.
–Field Level Media
