Roland-Garros: Ruud’s dominance over Rune continues, moves into semi-finals

Norwegian Casper Ruud, the No 4 seed, won against Dane Holger Rune, the No 6 seed, 6-1, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 to reach the last four of Roland-Garros – and set up a meeting with Alexander Zverev, the No 22 seed, next.

This was a 86th win on clay for Ruud since 2020 – the most on the ATP tour. He will have been buoyed by the knowledge that in the other two Grand Slam quarter-finals he has played, he has gone on to reach the final: both times last year, at Roland-Garros and the US Open. It will have gone some way to compensating for another statistic – in six previous Slam matches, he had never before beaten a player ranked in the Top 10.

Rune is currently sixth in the world so Ruud has now got over that particular obstacle. Oddly, all six of their meetings have been on clay, with Ruud winning five of them. Another slightly bizarre quirk was that their quarter-final in Paris last year started and ended with the same score in the set – 6-1 to Ruud in the first, and 6-3 to Ruud in the fourth.

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It was a less chaotic and dramatic affair than that encounter, though, which ended in a bit of a spat with the younger man accusing the victor of gloating after his triumph. Ruud’s father Christian denied it on his son’s behalf, with Rune’s mother Aneke defending her son.

In the previous rounds, the Norwegian defeated Swede qualifier Elias Ymer (6-4, 6-3, 6-2), Italian qualifier Giulio Zeppieri (6-3, 6-2, 4-6, 7-5), Chinese Zhizhen Zhang (4-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-4) and Chilean Nicolas Jarry (7-6 (3), 7-5, 7-5).

Rune may well have been suffering from the epic in the fourth-round against Francisco Cerundolo, the 23rd seed, which he won 7-6 (3), 3-6, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (7). He also beat American Christopher Eubanks (6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (2), 6-2), Frenchman Gael Monfils (W/O), Argentinian qualifier Genaro Alberto Olivieri (6-4, 6-1, 6-3) earlier in the tournament.

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Paris (Grand Slam), other last eight results (Stade Roland-Garros, clay, EUR 49.600.000, most recent results first):

• Alexander Zverev beat Tomas Martin Etcheverry: 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4
• Carlos Alcaraz (1) beat Stefanos Tsitsipas (5): 6-2, 6-1, 7-6 (5)
• Novak Djokovic (3) beat Karen Khachanov (11): 4-6, 7-6, 6-2, 6-4