Rome Masters: Rune comes from behind to beat Ruud and reach third Masters final

The Dane will play the winner of the match between Russian Daniil Medvedev, the No 3 seed, and Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, the No 5 seed, for the title

Holger Rune at the 2023 Rome Masters Image Credit: AI/ Reuters/ Panoramic

Haresh Ramchandani

May 20, 2023

Internazionali BNL d'Italia •Semi-final • completed

See draw

H. RunevsC. Ruud

Seventh seed Holger Rune, of Denmark, came from a set and a break down to beat fourth seed Casper Ruud of Norway, 6-7 (2), 6-4, 6-2 and reach his third career ATP Masters Series final at the Rome Masters on Saturday. All of Rune’s three Masters finals (Paris 2022 and Monte-Carlo 2023) have come in the last seven months.

For the first half of the match, it looked like Rune would not be able to solve the Ruud puzzle, having failed to beat his fellow Scandinavian peer in four meetings, including their testy quarter-final clash at Roland-Garros last year.

The Norwegian won the first set in a tiebreak 7-6 and then broke in the fifth game of the second to go up 4-2. However, the Dane went on to break twice in a row and win four games on the trot to take the second set 6-4 and push the match into a decider.

With the momentum on his side, Rune broke Ruud’s serve to go to build a 4-1 lead and then broke once again in the eighth game to complete the win in two hours and 43 minutes.

Rune converted 100 percent of his break point opportunities, going four on four while Ruud was able to convert only one of six break point chances, including two in the pivotal ninth game of the second set which would have let him serve for the match.

With the duo having aired out their differences, there was a much warmer handshake at the end of the match with Ruud wishing his opponent good luck for the final.

All's well that ends well 🤝@CasperRuud98 @holgerrune2003 #IBI23 pic.twitter.com/Yzi3xwEIvY
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) May 20, 2023

Rune has won seven matches in a row against top 5 players

The win was also Rune’s seventh consecutive win over a top 5 player, taking his overall record against the top 5 to 7-1.

beat #3 Alexander Zverev – 2022 Munich round of 16
beat #4 Stefanos Tsitsipas – 2022 Roland-Garros fourth round
beat #5 Stefanos Tsitsipas – 2022 Stockholm Open final
beat #1 Carlos Alcaraz – 2022 Paris Masters quarter-final
beat #5 Daniil Medvedev – 2023 Monte-Carlo quarter-final
beat #1 Novak Djokovic – 2023 Rome Masters quarter-final
beat #4 Casper Ruud – 2023 Rome Masters semi-final

With this, Rune becomes the fifth player to win seven-plus consecutive matches against top 5 in this century after Gustavo Kuerten, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.

The Dane, ranked No 7 in the world, will face the winner of the second semi-final between Russian Daniil Medvedev, the No 3 seed, and Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, the No 5 seed, for the title on Sunday.

The 20-year-old Dane had defeated French qualifier Arthur Fils (6-3, 6-3), Italian wildcard Fabio Fognini (6-4, 6-2), Australian qualifier Alexei Popyrin (6-4, 5-7, 6-4) and Serb Novak Djokovic, the current world No 1 and top seed (6-2, 4-6, 6-2) earlier in the tournament.

Earlier this week, Ruud, ranked No 4, won against Frenchman Arthur Rinderknech (6-4, 6-0), Kazakh Alexander Bublik (6-1, 4-6, 7-6), Serb Laslo Djere (6-1, 6-3) and Argentinian Francisco Cerundolo, the No 24 seed (7-6 (5), 6-4).