Clumsy middle – Sport – Kommersant

In Turin, at the final tournament of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) with a prize fund of $ 14.75 million, the finalists were determined. Russian Andrey Rublev was not among them: losing to world No. 4 Norwegian Kasper Ruud in two games, he finished this competition and ended the year in eighth place in the world rankings, one position below his compatriot Daniil Medvedev. Ruud’s opponent in the final will be the five-time winner of the tournament Serb Novak Djokovic, who outplayed the American Taylor Fritz in two tie-breaks. From Turin – Kommersant correspondent Yevgeny Fedyakov.

Karolina Ruud, one of the two sisters of Roland Garros and US Open finalist Kasper Ruud, has a good luck omen. The Kommersant correspondent saw with his own eyes that when her brother receives the first match point, this bright blonde, who usually sits in the Norwegian guest box next to his girlfriend Maria Galliani and her younger sister Charlotte, crosses four fingers on both hands – little fingers with ring fingers, and the middle ones with the index ones. If the ritual does not work the first time, then Karolina Ruud does not resort to the second attempt. However, on this evening, the best Norwegian tennis player in history needed only one match point. Serving from the second ball, he put an end to the third blow in the draw – not very strong, but with a clear backhand to the left corner of the court, which greatly pleased the girls who were worried about him.

Before this match, many were looking forward to a big tennis fight. It seemed that Andrei Rublev and Kasper Ruud would be able to give the public the same great match as last year at the finish of the group stage, when the Norwegian won a ticket to the semi-finals in the tie-break of the third set. Of course, Ruud has significantly improved this season. Rublev does not yet have such results in Grand Slam tournaments as the Norwegian. Nevertheless, the levels of their game are certainly comparable, and the forehand and the first serve (which, however, cannot be said about the second one) are definitely stronger for the Russian.

One of the key questions of the evening was to what extent Rublev would have time to recover in less than a day after a severe friday battle with Stefanos Tsitsipas, who brought him to the semi-finals, taking away a lot of physical energy, and most importantly, emotions.

At the end of the match with Ruud, the Russian did not refer to the lack of time, rightly noting that tennis professionals often find themselves in such situations.

“There were thousands of other players in my place,” he said. But, apparently, Rublev still did not have enough time to rest.

The first set lasted only 32 minutes. It ended about as quickly as the day before in a meeting with Tsitsipas and turned out to be even more unsuccessful for the Russian. Although at the beginning of such a development of events, nothing foreshadowed. Rublev seemed to start the meeting calmly and confidently, made three aces on his serve in the first two games and generally controlled the situation. But then the Norwegian, with the help of a crown sharp reception, literally from nothing organized a break in the fifth game, after which he took someone else’s serve one more time. Rublev got excited. He convinced himself of something, not understanding how, after Ruud’s shots, the ball regularly hits the very back line, he pounded his leg with his fist on the transitions, but nothing helped. The clumsy and very offensive for Rublev mid-match continued for quite a long time, as the opponent, having won four games in a row in the second half of the first game, did the same at the beginning of the second set.

Why was drawn such a long black stripe? “At first it just didn’t work out, and then I started to rush, overdoing the risk, but on the contrary, he played very well when it was required, using the power of my blows,” Rublev later explained. Yielding 1:5, the Russian, who, like on Friday, was ardently supported by the public, played one break, breaking a real ovation. But masters like Ruud do not lose two of their serves in a row in such cases.

As a result, the Norwegian won – 6:2, 6:4 in just 68 minutes, and the Kommersant correspondent could only ask his compatriot if he was satisfied with this season, which he again, like the previous two, finished in the top eight.

“Yes and no,” answered Rublev, who was quite a bit behind the seventh racket of the world in 2023, Daniil Medvedev, in terms of the number of rating points. very valuable. We must be grateful to fate for this result and at the same time improve. I perfectly understand that I have the potential and will continue to work.”

The first semi-final turned out to be completely different, in which the most titled participant of the Nitto ATP Finals, its five-time champion Novak Djokovic and tournament rookie Taylor Fritz. Having managed to recover from the hardest Friday battle against Daniil Medvedev, the Serb, having won back the lost pitch at the end of the second game, won a difficult victory – 7:6 (7:5), 7:6 (8:6) in 1 hour 54 minutes. The score of Djokovic’s personal meetings with Ruud is 3:0, and the Norwegian did not manage to take a single set out of six in them. So Djokovic has a great chance to win the final tournament for the sixth time, catching up with the record holder Roger Federer in this indicator.