Casper Ruud: – Shock loss

The Snarøya boy suffered a very surprising loss to German Yannick Hanfmann.

A player who is ranked number 101 in the world, 76 places behind Ruud who is number 25. This is the first time Ruud has lost an ATP match against a lower ranked player.

Ruud came back from the start under the sun in Italy. The German dominated the first set, winning 6-2.

In set number two, Hanfmann immediately took the initiative to break Ruud’s serve in the first game. He drove on, and swept over Ruud with the numbers 6-1 in the second set, and 2-0 in the set.

– It is quite hard and flat, he does not get time to control the game as he usually does on gravel, Ole Bentzen commented on Dplay during the match.

Ruud has had an adventurous 2020 until now. In February, he won his first ATP tournament. In September, he pressured world number one Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals of the Masters tournament in Rome.

In the French Open, he knocked out world number three Dominic Thiem in the third round. These achievements have given a jump up to 25th place in the ATP ranking.

– It may be a small discharge after many tough tournaments. When the day is not right, there will be ugly numbers, commentator Bentzen summed up.

When Dagbladet met Ruud last week, he was asked if he was prepared for more downturns after a wild year.

– Yes, I have to reckon with adversity at any time. I try not to think so much about it, just try to prepare myself. But if I fall a little on the rankings, there is no crisis. I will not get through the next 15 years without adversity, but what it is about is how I handle it and how long it takes before I turn adversity. I’ve been good at turning it around before. So far, things are going well upwards, so we can hope it continues that way, Ruud replied then.