Jannik Sinner produced one of the best performances of his career to beat Casper Ruud 6-0, 6-1 to reach the Italian Open semi-finals, with the victim of this demolition job laughing as he met his opponent at the net.
Sky Sports commentator described Sinner’s display as “some of the best tennis we’ve ever seen” and Ruud struggled to feel disappointed after he was beaten by a flawless display.
Ruud, won the Madrid Masters title earlier this week and is established as one of the giants of the clay courts, was in a philosophical mood as he accepted his fate.
“It’s as near as perfect that I witnessed, at least as a player playing someone. Just got to give it to him,” said Ruud.
“I mean, the first four games, I did maybe a couple unforced errors with my forehand where I went for it, but I missed. Everything else that came out of his racquet and throughout the whole match, as well, feels like a hundred miles an hour plus.
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“Every single shot from the forehand, from the backhand. Even on my shots that I feel at times are pretty heavy, it comes back just firing. It’s just immensely impressive. That’s really all I can say.
“It doesn’t feel so bad honestly. I think it was more fun than anything, even though I lost 6-0, 6-1.
“You just look at the guy and say; this is kind of, yeah, next-level stuff. I don’t know what else to say. It was almost fun to witness at the same time.
“Of course, I wish it was a closer match. I wish I could have given the people and the fans a longer, closer match, but I think that I was there ready to play, but he was just even readier.
“Every area of my good shots he matched with even better back. I couldn’t re-answer with a better shot. That was just the story of the match.”
Sinner insisted he would not get carried away by one perfect performance as he looked ahead to a semi-final against Tommy Paul.
“I felt great on court. I think we all saw that,” said Sinner.
“My goal was trying to understand where my level is this tournament. It raised day by day. So I’m very happy about that. The result doesn’t really matter. But how I felt today was very positive signs for me.
“Everything can change in one day. It’s not that one performance can tell everything of my shape now. But I’m very happy. I think today everything worked very well. I served well. Returned well. Moving great on court. Very happy about that. Let’s see what’s coming in the semis.
“Every one of us has one or two opponents where we struggle a bit more. I tried to replicate what I’ve done in the past today on a different surface. I was hitting very well the ball.
“These conditions… playing at night against Casper is a bit better in my point of view because he can’t make the ball bounce as much. Everything went my favor today. Some net cords. Some lines. The match can change very quickly… if I didn’t serve well at 2-1, we’re even again. Could’ve been a game changer. I’m happy how I handled the situation.”
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