Casper Ruud suffered a shock early exit at the French Open after appearing to pick up an injury, winning just one game in the last two sets. The world No. 8 is a two-time finalist here and thrives on the clay, recently winning the Madrid Open.
After racing through the first set, Ruud suddenly collapsed and world No. 41 Nuno Borges made light work of the Norwegian, winning 2-6 6-4 6-1 6-0. Ruud has not lost this early at Roland Garros since he made his debut seven years ago.
A protege of Rafael Nadal who spent years training at the Mallorcan’s academy, Ruud is something of a clay-court specialist. In the last few seasons, he’s been a lock to go deep in Paris.
The seventh seed seemed to be on his way to a routine victory when he took the opener 6-2, but Borges finally earned a break early in the second set and things quickly fell away for the Prince of Clay.
After losing the third set 6-1, Ruud received a medical time-out, laying down on the court while the physio worked on his left calf. He resumed the match but didn’t win another game, with even the commentators feeling sorry for Ruud as he stepped up to serve at 0-5 in the fourth.
“You hope that he gets a game here but that’s irrelevant, I’m afraid,” Simon Reed said on TNT Sports.
But it wasn’t to be; Borges secured a bagel in the final set to book his spot in the third round here for the first time in his career.
Afterwards, the world No. 41 said: “I was fighting a lot, especially that first set, I feel like I was completely drilled. He really played a huge intensity, and I wasn’t handling the situation the best.
“It was too much for me, I kept on trying. I realised he started to slow down a little bit. Obviously, he wasn’t 100 per cent today. I still battled from the beginning to the end and I gave myself a shot and I got lucky.”
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