Ruud on the current competition on the ATP Tour: "It's a good thing for tennis"
Casper Ruud has qualified for the semifinals of the Madrid Masters 1000. The Norwegian, ranked 15th in the world, managed to defeat Daniil Medvedev for the first time in his career after four meetings (6-3, 7-5).
Ruud hopes to fight for the title, but he will first have to get past Francisco Cerundolo this Friday in the semifinals. On the Sky Sports set after the match, the 26-year-old Ruud discussed the competition on the ATP Tour, with the new generation taking up more and more space.
"It doesn’t matter whether it’s Zverev, Alcaraz, Sinner, Mensik, Cerundolo, or Draper reaching the quarterfinals or semifinals of big tournaments—they’re all great players. In the end, rankings are just a number, and everyone can really play well.
I think it’s a good thing for tennis, and especially for me as a player, to see that we’ve already had three different Masters 1000 winners this season across three tournaments.
We could even have a fourth by the end of the tournament here in Madrid. We’ll see what happens. I’ll try to do my best this weekend. It’s cool to see Mensik winning in Miami, Draper in Indian Wells…
All the players who have won this year are young, but Mensik was the youngest among them. It shows there’s more variety in tennis lately," Ruud elaborated.