Casper Ruud’s futility against Jannik Sinner has a long way to go before reaching Sinner vs. Alex de Minaur levels, but early returns are not encouraging for the Norwegian.
Heading into Thursday’s quarterfinal clash at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia, Ruud trails the head-to-head series 3-0 overall and 6-0 in total sets. He has forced only one tiebreaker and half of their sets have been no more competitive than 6-2. Sinner prevailed 7-6(2), 6-3 on the indoor hard courts of Vienna in 2020, 7-5, 6-1 at the same tournament one year later, and 6-1, 6-2 at the 2024 Nitto ATP Finals.
Clay, of course, should allow Ruud to at least be a little bit more competitive. The two-time Roland Garros runner-up is on an absolute roll on his favorite surface right now. He is coming off the biggest title of his career at the Madrid Masters and has extended his winning streak to nine matches with Rome victories over Alexander Bublik, Matteo Berrettini, and Jaume Munar.
As good as Ruud is on dirt, the world No. 7 would obviously rather face Sinner at any other clay-court tournament. The Italian’s crowd support in Rome is particularly raucous this fortnight given the circumstances of his comeback from a three-month suspension. Sinner has given the Foro Italico fans exactly what they have come to see so far, picking up straight-set wins at the expense of Mariano Navone, Jesper de Jong, and Francisco Cerundolo.
Sinner may not be quite at his absolute best, but he is playing great. The level the world No. 1 is bringing to the table should be more than good enough to beat an opponent who has to be starting to run out of gas on the heels of so much recent tennis.
Pick: Sinner in 2
Sinner must just take time away from him and Ruud doesn’t know how to deal with it. Gets drawn into rushing his shots.
The ball just keeps coming back faster than Ruud likes and he doesn’t know how to deal with. I’m not watching it but that’s what I can picture happening.
The good clay courters need to work that out.
Well done, Ricky. One of your predictions eventually hit. Just shows anyone can get a prediction right when the sample size is large enough.
congrats to me
When you go out of your way to create problems between people, maybe that will come back to bite you one day.
I want to thank me