Ruud: “Nadal would have been unbeatable at UTS”
The Norwegian will seek a maiden UTS title at Bastide Médical UTS Nîmes
Julien Nouet / UTS
Casper Ruud will compete at the Bastide Médical UTS Nîmes April 4 – 5 seeking his first title, with the Norwegian attempting to also use it to ramp up his preparation for the European clay court season.
The world No 6, nicknamed ‘The Ice Man’, will first face off against Alexi ‘The Sniper’ Popyrin, who replaces Holger ‘The Viking’ Rune who had to withdraw from the tournament.
How would you summarise your 2025 season so far?
Casper Ruud: Not too bad, not the best either, kind of average. Got some good wins, had a good run in Dallas, which is my best result of the year – making the final there – and, unfortunately, in Acapulco, after Dallas, I got some food poisoning and had to withdraw.
Indian Wells and Miami didn’t got as well as I hoped, but that’s ok, it’s onto the clay and looking forward to changing the surface. I had some good wins in Miami that I will try to bring with me and bring some confidence to here in UTS and in Monte-Carlo.
What do you think about the Miami champion, Jakub Mensik?
Casper Ruud: I think he’s a great player. He’s tall, serves well, and moves a little bit better than you’d think for a tall guy, and, from the baseline, I don’t see many holes in his game.
On an off day, maybe he makes some errors, but I haven’t seen him too much, he’s got incredible potential and he’s shown it already, beaten a lot of good players. This run in Miami was incredible, beating [Taylor] Fritz in the semis and Novak [Djokovic] back-to-back was incredible, so he’s going to be dangerous for many years to come and he’s still so young.
Really impressive, and he’ll only get better and better if he stays injury free, a big problem in the future.
Three semi-finals, but no UTS finals. Might your experience push you towards the final or even the title?
Casper Ruud: I hope so, it’ll be my first UTS on clay so I’m looking forward to it. I’ve had some good matches in the past, a lot of UTS tournaments so far, so I’ve got a lot of experience.
Now, Holger [Rune] isn’t coming, so I’m playing [Alexi] Popyrin instead, that’ll be an interesting first match – we haven’t played in many, many years. So just going to try and do my job, and do my best, one match at a time, and see how it goes, but, definitely, I would love to be here on Saturday and play here for the trophy. If not, that’s ok, but I would love to lift the trophy for the first time.
I’ve been very fortunate to play on all of the centre courts around the Grand Slams, but nothing can compare historically to this
Now that you have that UTS experience, do you now know how you need to play?
Casper Ruud: I’ve had matches where I have won the sudden death, some where I have lost the sudden death, I’ve had matches where I’ve won 3-0, lost 3-0 – so I’ve been through it all.
I think if you play well from the baseline then you have good potential to do well because there won’t be too many aces, there won’t be too many quick points with the serve, so, if you’re feeling well from the baseline, then that’s really helpful.
The matches where I have lost, I felt like the other player was better from the baseline, and it was close in Guadalajara, it was sudden death in the semi-final, but David [Goffin] has been playing some great tennis this year, as he showed in Miami beating [Carlos] Alcaraz in a good streak. A little bit new for everyone, no matter how many times you played UTS, that we’re playing on clay, so I hope I can be a favourite for myself.
What do you think about this UTS being played on clay?
Casper Ruud: I think it will be nice, hopefully good for me, but also physically quite tough because we’ll have longer rallies, don’t have so much time between the points.
You can make it quite physical here, on the clay, and just think about Rafa [Nadal] when he was in his prime if he would play this format, it would be tough for everyone to beat him with one serve, longer rallies, not so much time between the points, so this specific format feels like it was specifically made for Rafa on clay, but, you know, I always love watching Rafa, so hopefully I can take inspiration from him, but know that, if I feel like I’m getting tired, my opponent will hopefully also feel the same.
Thoughts on your first opponent, Alexi Popyrin?
Casper Ruud: Well, I’ve been practicing with him a few times throughout the years and he has a tremendous serve, aggressive game, huge forehand so he doesn’t have many weaknesses, but, if I had to guess, I think hard court is his preferred surface, so I’ll try and use the clay to my advantage. Happy that we only play with one serve, it will be tougher to hit winners and kind of finish rallies with quick points, I will try and wear him down and see how it goes.
What do you think of the stadium?
Casper Ruud: It’s incredible [the arena]. I walk around, and I look at the walls, the stairs, the ceilings, and I think, if these walls could talk, they would tell a lot of crazy stories – for the good and the bad, I guess. It was quite brutal back in the day with the warriors that came out here fighting, thankfully I don’t have to fight for my life on Friday like they did, but it’s incredible to play in a historic place like this, the way they built this and it’s stayed here for 2000 years, it’s very inspirational.
I’ve been very fortunate to play on all of the centre courts around the Grand Slams, but nothing can compare historically to this, because this is 2000 years old and has had everything here in the past, so it’s great that it has tennis here.
