“You are hurt everywhere”: Ruud, Thiem and De Minaur on the challenge of winning a title

Recently, Casper Ruud, Alex de Minaur and Dominic Thiem met for dinner to discuss all things tennis during the UTS event in Oslo, Norway. 

Some of the conversation was caught in ‘All on the Table’, a UTS show which gives an inside look into players’ minds, with one particularly interesting topic of discussion: the brutal challenge of going all the way in a tournament to win a title.

“Physically, it’s tough for sure,” explained Ruud to Thiem and De Minaur. “Every match something new appears. Like oh wow, I felt something there, or yesterday I felt something there in practice.”

“You are hurt everywhere, that’s what I felt. Blisters everywhere, hurt in the shoulder, the back, everything is hurting.”

Ruud’s missed opportunity in 2022

Continuing the conversation around the physical challenges of winning a title on the ATP Tour, Ruud thought that in 2022, he had a chance to capitalise on this physical toll. The Norwegian made it all the way to the Roland-Garros final, where he faced off against an injured Rafael Nadal.

“I was actually thinking the night before, you never know, maybe he’s so hurt that he can’t even walk,” Ruud explained to the others. “If there’s one year when maybe someone can surprise him, it might be this one.”

That wasn’t to be for Ruud, as he was swept 6-3, 6-3, 6-0. However, the Norwegian surmised what could have been, if Nadal had been forced to play a full semi-final the match before. The Spaniard had been embroiled in a tough clash against Alexander Zverev, when the German was forced to withdraw due to an ankle injury in the second set. Three hours had passed in the match already with only one set completed.

“You never know, could have been a cheeky walkover in the final,” Thiem joked of Ruud’s bad luck at Roland-Garros. “Has that ever happened, a walk over in the final of a Grand Slam?”

The physical toll of making a final

“I thought it would happen many times, because you’ve been to a few Grand Slam finals and the body is pretty done,” Ruud said to Thiem in response to the Austrian’s question. “At some point I was thinking, ‘There has to be someone who just couldn’t do it, couldn’t get out there.’”

“But I think, nobody likes to take too much pain killers, but if you do it once a year or whatever, you do it in a Slam final,” countered Thiem. 

Despite having never been to a Grand Slam final, De Minaur can understand completely the mindset that players get into at that stage of a tournament. 

“You don’t feel anything, whatever it takes,” the Aussie asserted.

“That adrenaline as well keeps you going. Like everything just goes. Doesn’t matter honestly, like you play a regular final,” agreed Ruud, before asking De Minaur, “You played Toronto final, no? It’s also a huge event. You know when you get into third round, quarter-finals, it just goes like this. You’re playing well, you’re playing better.”

“Yeah, it’s more routine,” explained De Minaur. “You don’t even think about the days, they just go by. You go to the same restaurants, do exactly the same. Then when you get home, oh, just breathe out!”

While these three have plenty of titles between them, the only man who can truly say he knows what it takes physically is Thiem, who went all the way at the 2020 US Open.