Norway: Siltanews – News Desk
Casper Ruud will chase a milestone moment Sunday at the Mutua Madrid Open, where he takes on Jack Draper in the championship match at the Caja Magica: Ruud, a former No. 2 in the PIF ATP Rankings, is competing for his maiden ATP Masters 1000 crown.
ATPTour.com recently caught up with Ruud to learn how it all adds up for the 12-time tour-level champion, including his favorite Lexus ATP Head2Head rivalry in history and what he considers to be his greatest success. If he defeats Draper in Madrid, the 26-year-old would be the first player from Norway to lift a Masters 1000 trophy at this level, and he also explains why hailing from such a relatively small tennis country was one of his greatest difficulties early in his career.
Rafa-Novak or Rafa-Roger, definitely. One of those three typically ended up playing each other in a final of the biggest tournament, so that’s the go-to answer I guess.
It’s tempting to say Alcaraz because I’ve lost to him in some of my biggest finals. Then you look at him as a rival and we haven’t played a tremendous amount of times, but we have played five times. In my first Masters 1000 final I played him and lost in Miami, and in the US Open final when we were both playing for our first Slam, I lost to him. So, it’s tempting to go with him. He’s young and hopefully I get to play him many more times.
I think just the fact that I come from a small tennis country in terms of the history of the sport in our country. When I grew up watching all these legends on TV, I was in the era of watching Roger become the greatest when he broke Sampras’ Grand Slam record and then Rafa topped him, and then Novak came and topped him again.
So it was hard to envision myself, some days at least, as a small kid from Norway who would be able to get up there and play the biggest tournaments, the biggest matches, which in my eyes are Grand Slam finals. Of course I’ve never won one, but just to be there was an experience and I kind of pinched myself in the arm the times I got to play finals of big tournaments.
I was seven or eight or nine watching Rafa against Roger or Novak against Rafa or anyone play a Slam final, and I’m here myself. So I think that’s a long challenge, because it’s my whole career. But I think that’s what I’m most proud of — that I believed even from a young age that someday I could do it.