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The World No. 22 makes it three straight clay ATP Masters 1000 semis
Casper Ruud eased past Alexander Bublik 7-5, 6-1 to move into the Mutua Madrid Open semi-finals on Friday.

"It's a great feeling, it’s my third Masters 1000 semi-final, third in a row on clay," Ruud said. "I’m just playing the tennis of my life for the moment and I'm enjoying it."

In a tight first set Ruud broke Bublik at 6-5 by capatilising on his fourth set point. Ruud would then run away with the match in just 69 minutes. He's into his third ATP Masters 1000 clay-court semi-final (Rome and Monte-Carlo).

"This is the third time now; I hope that's the lucky charm," Ruud said. "The previous two times I lost to [Novak] Djokovic, then I lost to [Andrey] Rublev. Whoever it will be tomorrow will be at least a lower-ranked player. But they're both great players. I hope that I can try to take advantage of that."

In addition to three consecutive clay-court Masters 1000s semi-finals on clay dating back to Rome last year, Ruud has now reached three semi-finals from his past three outings (Monte-Carlo, Munich and Madrid).

"I’ve just had an unbelievable motivation to play the European clay swing and when we didn’t get to play it last year, I was very sad," Ruud said. "So I think I just have double motivation compared to last year."

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Ruud becomes the seventh unseeded ATP player to reach the semi-finals in Madrid and will be aiming to become the first to make a final when he takes on the winner of Matteo Berrettini and Cristian Garin on Saturday.

He improves to 2-0 in his ATP Head2Head Series against Bublik. The Kazakh hit 23 winners to Ruud’s 19, but Ruud missed far less, giving up just four unforced errors to Bublik’s 21.

Bublik tried to mix things up by serving-and-volleying and Ruud responded by forcing net errors and consistently making passing shots. With Bublik taking big risks, Ruud was able to stay patient and make the most of his chances.

"I guess I'm just enjoying it here in Madrid, playing good tennis," Ruud said. "Today was almost without any unforced errors. That's probably the biggest confidence boost you can give yourself for a big match tomorrow."

Ruud has yet to be broken and faced his first break point this week in the first set against Bublik.

"I tried to have the toss a little bit more in front, do a little bit more turning of my upper body on the serve, which are some small technical things. So far it's been working out well," Ruud said. "I only faced one break point through the whole tournament. That's not normal from my standards."

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On Thursday, Ruud scored the biggest win of his career by upsetting Stefanos Tsitsipas for his first Top 5 win. He started his campaign in Madrid with a career-high FedEx ATP Ranking of No. 22 and is guaranteed to crack the Top 20 next week.

ATPTour.com looks at the top Movers of the Week in the FedEx ATP Rankings, as of Monday, 10 May 2021
No. 16 Casper Ruud, +6 (Career High)
The Norwegian has broken into the Top 20 of the FedEx ATP Rankings for the first time at a career-high No. 16, following his run to the Mutua Madrid Open semi-finals (l. to Berrettini). It was his third straight ATP Masters 1000 clay-court semi-final appearance (also 2020 Rome, 2021 Monte-Carlo). The 22-year-old began the 2021 season at No. 27.

View Latest FedEx ATP Rankings

No. 22 Cristian Garin, +3
The Chilean sits four places off his career-high of No. 18 after he reached his second Masters 1000 quarter-final in Madrid (l. to Berrettini). Garin, 24, defeated Fernando Verdasco, Dominik Koepfer and Daniil Medvedev en route to the last eight.

No. 34 John Isner, +5
The big-serving American, who hit 100+ aces at a clay-court tournament for a third time, beat Roberto Bautista Agut and World No. 7 Andrey Rublev to reach the Madrid quarter-finals (l. to Thiem). The 36-year-old moves up five places to No. 34.

No. 61 Alexei Popyrin, +15 (Career High)
The Australian won through Madrid qualifying and beat Jan-Lennard Struff and Jannik Sinner, before falling to Rafael Nadal in the third round. This year's Singapore Tennis Open titlist jumps 15 positions to a career-high No. 61 in the FedEx ATP Rankings.

No. 64 Federico Delbonis, +13
The former World No. 33, who also qualified in the Spanish capital reached the third round (l. to Berrettini), rises 13 spots to No. 64.

Other Notable Top 100 Movers
No. 2 Daniil Medvedev, +1
No. 9 Matteo Berrettini, +1
No. 40 Alexander Bublik, +4 (Career High)
No. 84 Marcos Giron, +7
No. 100 Marco Cecchinato, +4

Norwegian into sixth consecutive QF
Third seed Casper Ruud claimed a spot in the quarter-finals at the Gonet Geneva Open with a 7-5, 6-2 victory over Tennys Sandgren on Wednesday.

The Norwegian arrived in Geneva on the back of a strong run of form that included semi-final appearances at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters, BMW Open (Munich) and Mutua Madrid Open.

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The 22-year-old took that momentum into his opening match against Sandgren, who is No. 67 in the FedEx ATP Rankings. The American was looking for a win in their first tour-level meeting, having fallen to Ruud in the qualifying rounds of Auckland in 2018.


Ruud came out swinging against Sandgren in their Centre Court clash, creating his first break opportunity in the fifth game and keeping pace with the American from the baseline. The third seed raised his level as the set wound to a close, dropping only one point in his final three service games to keep the pressure on Sandgren before breaking to love at 5-5. Ruud got out to an early break in the second set, and converted his fourth match point to seal the victory in an hour and 24 minutes.

Into his sixth consecutive quarter-final appearance, a streak dating back to Acapulco in March, Ruud will next face Dominik Koepfer after the German defeated Feliciano Lopez 7-5, 6-7(1), 6-3.

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Second seed Denis Shapovalov and fourth seed Grigor Dimitrov are scheduled to hit the court later today in Geneva, after a rain delay halted play for an hour and a half.

The third seed plays Shapovalov or Cuevas in Saturday's final

After three straight semi-final losses, Casper Ruud soared into his first final of 2021 with a dominant 6-3, 6-2 win over Pablo Andujar at the Gonet Geneva Open on Friday.
The World No. 24 was appearing in his fourth semi-final after deep runs in Madrid, Munich and Monte-Carlo. All 12 of the Norwegian’s semi-final appearances have come on clay.

The 22-year-old has had a stellar season so far with a 19-6 record and four wins over Top 20 opponents (Pablo Carreno Busta, Diego Schwartzman, Felix Auger-Aliassime and Stefanos Tstisipas).

How To Watch

Ruud faces second seed Denis Shapovalov or qualifier Pablo Cuevas in Saturday’s final. It will be his fourth career final; he's 1-2 with one title in Buenos Aires last year.

Earlier in the week, Andujar scored the biggest win of his career over Roger Federer. This marked his first tour-level semi-final since Gstaad in 2019 and his fifteenth overall (all on clay).

In the first set, Ruud capitalised on an early long game to break Andujar and set the tone. His relentless aggressive groundstrokes forced the 35-year-old Spaniard to make more errors than he normally would. Ruud’s excellent serving put even more pressure on Andujar — he won 74 per cent of his service points and faced zero break points.

Ruud converted his first break-point chance in the second set to go up 3-1. He’d quickly wrap up in the win 80 minutes with Andujar netting an overhead on match point.