Barcelona tournament | Casper Ruud takes his revenge on Stefanos Tsitsipas

(Barcelona) The Norwegian Casper Ruud, 6^e world, won his first ATP 500 tournament on Sunday in Barcelona by taking his revenge in the final against the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas (7^e), who beat him last week in the Monte-Carlo final.

Ruud, who also ended a series of five defeats in his five previous finals on the circuit, won in two sets (7-5, 6-3) and 1 hour 29 minutes of play, to conclude a week perfect on Catalan clay, during which he did not lose a single set.

With this 11^e title, the first in an ATP 500, the double finalist at Roland-Garros (2022, 2023), confirms his promising form a few weeks before the Paris tournament, where he will be one of the favorites.

“For me it means a lot, it’s the biggest title I’ve ever won in my career, it’s something I’ve been running behind for a long time already,” the 25-year-old told Teledeporte.

“In the last six or seven months I have made some progress in my game and I am happy that it is paying off,” Ruud said.

“I didn’t start the match very well, but fortunately I was able to come back and play very well at the end of the first and second set,” he added.

Blunt Tsitsipas

The Scandinavian player in fact gave the reins of the game to the Greek by giving up his entry serve, before relaunching and winning a hard-fought first set (7-5).

Fresher and more aggressive against a Tsitsipas who had to battle in the quarters and half against the Serbian Dusan Lajovic then the Argentinian Facundo Diaz Acosta, each time conceding the first set, he unfolded in the second where he made the break at 2-1, the Greek then conceding a shutout on his serve, to win this second set 6-3.

“The plan was to get into him a little more than last week. He had too much time to control the game. It was a long two weeks for both of us so it was certain that fatigue was going to show at some point,” analyzed the Norwegian on Eurosport.

Tsitsipas, returned to the top 10 thanks to his coronation in Monte-Carlo, sees his series of ten victories come to an end, but will be able to rely, with a little rest, on some certainties on his favorite surface, where he is capable of competing with the greatest.

The two men will now try to confirm their good form in Madrid, then Rome, to gauge their chances of the Porte d’Auteuil title in Paris.

According to the Serbian press, Novak Djokovic should however skip the Masters 1000 in Madrid, which Carlos Alcaraz is still not sure of playing due to pain in his right forearm which forced him to withdraw in Monte-Carlo then Barcelona.

Without pretension, Rafael Nadal is already training in the Spanish capital, after a lackluster return to Catalonia (defeat on 2^e tour) for his first tournament in more than three months.