Ruud praises rowdy Norwegian crowd at UTS Oslo

Casper Ruud was pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm of the Norwegian crowd at UTS Oslo on Friday. Ruud treated his fans to a victory over Holger Rune.

Casper Ruud UTS Grand Finals – Tennis Majors / UTS

Ricky Dimon

February 10, 2024

Noway may be though to be more of a winter sport kind of country — because it is — but a tennis craze appears to be catching on this weekend.

The Ultimate Tennis Showdown has taken its talents to Oslo and if Day 1 is any indication, the Norwegian fans like their tennis. Friday’s order of play for UTS Oslo was headlined by Noway’s own Casper Ruud, and The Iceman delivered just what the fans came to see. He defeated Holger “The Viking” Rune 6-21, 14-13, 17-12, 13-12 as part of round-robin competition in Group B.

As if the crowd needed any encouraging, The Iceman paused in his service motion on the very first point point of the match — encouraging his supporters to make even more noise.

They hardly stopped making noise throughout the duration of the contest between The Iceman and The Viking.

“It is difficult to describe; incredible, really,” Ruud commented. “I’m really surprised in a positive way how loud they were — compared to for example Davis Cup matches I played at home this is a 10 times more energetic crowd. I’m hoping that playing tennis in this stadium can be a future for Norway.

“For sure I wanted to get the crowd going in the beginning. It was not the best start, but luckily we were playing best of five quarters I had some time to get back into and the home crowd supported me throughout the whole match. So it was amazing.”

The Iceman was asked afterward if perhaps he did not quite have ice in his veins at the start of the match, as he finished the first quarter trailing by a hard-to-believe 15 points.

“I was a little bit nervous, maybe more than I expected,” he admitted. “But it’s normal; I had never played [in front of] a crowd in Norway like this, so what do you expect?… To have this at home was an incredible feeling.”