Injured Ruud falls to Borges at Roland Garros: 'Hopefully nothing serious'

Casper Ruud's hopes for another run at the Roland Garros title after a strong European clay swing ended with an injury-affected defeat to Nuno Borges on Wednesday afternoon.

The No. 41 in the PIF ATP Rankings Borges downed Ruud 2-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-0 at the clay-court major to become the first Portuguese man to reach the third-round in tournament history. Two-time finalist Ruud made a fast start on Court Suzanne-Lenglen but from the third set onwards was visibly hampered by a left knee issue, which he received treatment for.

Borges with the upset… 🚨

He takes out 7th seed Ruud 2-6 6-4 6-1 6-0…@rolandgarros | #rolandgarros pic.twitter.com/Ifx0LY6v6n

— ATP Tour (@atptour) May 28, 2025

In his post-match press conference, Ruud explained that he had been managing pain in his left knee in the run-up to Roland Garros.

“It's hopefully nothing too serious. For the last couple of weeks, I've been kind of struggling a little bit with knee pain on and off,” explained the Norwegian. “That's why I decided to pull out of Geneva after Rome, do my best, and heal to be ready here.

“When you're practising, leading up to the tournament, it's easier to avoid certain movements that are painful. It's not painful. Everything is not painful. But certain movements out there are kind of what makes it painful. Certain shots are painful to do. When you're playing matches, you can't really control it in the same way. You do everything you can to get to every ball. Sometimes you kind of forget that this is a shot I shouldn't go for maybe in terms of pain in the knee. That's pretty much all.”

Ruud said he first felt the pain during April’s Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters, and he also revealed that he had a scan on the knee during his maiden ATP Masters 1000 title run at the Mutua Madrid Open. The 26-year-old, who is now 25-7 for 2025 according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index, was also keen to praise the performance of Borges after the Portuguese levelled the pair’s Lexus ATP Head2Head series at 1-1.

“It's been okay in practice because, like I said, I'm able to control it a bit more," said Ruud. "When you play a match, you go full on, no matter what happens. I don't want to take anything away from Nuno, because I think he played a phenomenal match, a really high level.”

For Borges, his reward for earning a maiden victory against a Top-10 opponent is a third-round meeting with Alexei Popyrin. The 25th-seeded Australian earlier downed Alejandro Tabilo 7-5, 6-3, 6-4.

“I was fighting a lot, especially that first set, I felt like I was completely drilled,” said Borges of his victory against Ruud. “He really played a huge intensity, and I wasn’t handling the situation the best. It was too much for me. Then I just kept on trying and noticed he started to slow down a little bit, and obviously he wasn’t 100 per cent today or I’m sure the result would not have been the same.

“I’m still proud of how I battled from the beginning until the end and gave myself a shot, and today I got lucky.”