Casper Ruud was forced to fight for three hours in an epic match against a rejuvenated Stefanos Tsitsipas.<\/p>\n
The Madrid Open reigning champion battled in the heat for 2 hours and 57 minutes against a Tsitsipas who showed signs of his old self.<\/p>\n
It was the Greek who took the opening set by way of tie-break and the pair needed such an ending to decide every set of the thrilling encounter.<\/p>\n
As to where the match was won, Tsitsipas will highlight his first serve as a room for improvement with just 73% of his first serve points won. Ruud on the other hand converted 82% of his.<\/p>\n
But despite this, Tsitsipas kept himself in it by remaining calm under pressure, especially when it came to break points and he saved 11 of the 12 he faced.<\/p>\n
Crucially, that one failure came late on with Ruud saving two match points before breaking Tsitsipas to push the deciding set into a tie-break.<\/p>\n
The victory means Ruud is on a nine-match winning streak in Madrid and will now face the winner of Francisco Cerundolo and Alexander Blockx.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could have been going home already,\u201d he said. \u201cSo just really happy and proud the way I fought back.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first two sets were really close, and obviously the score line said so as well.<\/p>\n
MORE NEWS ON T365<\/strong><\/p>\n * Jannik Sinner calls out Madrid Open organisers as he asks for change after extending win streak<\/strong><\/a> \u201cThe third set, I kind of felt like I had a better beginning. I had some break chances early on, I had a somewhat of an easy sitter forehand. The plan was to go big across, and then I changed my mind, just a split second before and I hesitated, and I went down the line and hit it on the top of the net.<\/p>\n \u201cSo those things you tend to remember, unfortunately, a bit too long. But that was a key kind of point for him and then he broke me in the next game. So that was two really tough games for me to kind of swallow.<\/p>\n \u201cBut we moved on and luckily, the last chance I had, I was able to break back and stay alive in the match.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd also the tie break kind of turned it around. I was a little bit down in the beginning, but then I played some clutch points. I think that the return at three all in the tie break is kind of what maybe wins the match for me.<\/p>\n \u201cI get a mini break, and then I play two good points behind my serve, 6-3 up. Feel like you\u2019re just there, and then just managed to get one extra ball in, which was the key today.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the defeat, there were plenty of positives to take from the tournament for Tsitsipas who gained 50 ranking points and rose up five places to 75th.<\/p>\n Ruud remains 25th for the time being with plenty of points to lose should he fail to retain the tournament.<\/p>\n \u00a0Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google<\/a> to your favourites list for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n The post Madrid Open: Casper Ruud survives Stefanos Tsitsipas scare in three hour battle<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Casper Ruud was forced to fight for three hours in an epic match against a rejuvenated Stefanos Tsitsipas. The Madrid Open reigning champion battled in the heat for 2 hours and 57 minutes against a Tsitsipas who showed signs of his old self. It was the Greek who took the opening set by way of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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