World No. 7 Casper Ruud reflected on his decisive defeat to Jannik Sinner in the quarter-finals of the Rome Masters, where he lost 0-6, 1-6.
“Yes, from what I saw, that was as close to perfection as possible, at least from players I`ve faced,” Ruud commented. “Credit to him.”
Discussing the match, Ruud explained, “In the first four games, maybe I made a couple of unforced errors on the forehand side trying to be aggressive, but missed. Everything else coming at me the whole match felt like 100 miles per hour or more. Every shot – forehand, backhand. Even my shots, which sometimes feel pretty powerful to me, he was returning like cannonballs.”
“It was incredibly impressive. There`s not much more to say,” he added.
When asked if he could have done anything differently against such a performance, Ruud pointed to his serve. “Well, the biggest thing that let me down today was my serve. If I had served better, I would certainly have gotten more easy points.”
Reflecting on baseline exchanges, Ruud noted, “In baseline rallies, I might have won one or two long points. Although, thinking about it, I`m not even sure if I won a single one. I think there were one or two after all. In most exchanges, he was better than me, even though I felt like I was trying to construct points the way I wanted. But he was everywhere.”
He used an analogy to describe Sinner`s omnipresence on the court: “It`s like saying that when someone is playing great, it feels like they have two forehands – one on the right side, one on the left. In his case, it was almost like having two backhands because his backhand is also incredibly good. It felt like playing against a wall that was constantly sending balls back at you at 100 miles per hour,” Ruud concluded in his post-match interview.
