Ruud: ‘I always dreamed about winning tournaments like this’

Time and time again, Casper Ruud has positioned himself for glory at the world’s biggest events. The Norwegian had made two major finals, two ATP Masters 1000 championship matches and the final showdown at the Nitto ATP Finals. Each time, he fell just short.

Not Sunday. Not at the Mutua Madrid Open, where finally the 26-year-old made his breakthrough. Ruud battled past Jack Draper in a hard-fought three-setter to claim the biggest trophy of his career.

“My record in big finals is still not good, it's 1-6,” Ruud said. “I’ve been in many unbelievable and incredible positions in my career, and I've been able to experience some great things and, unfortunately, have been on the losing spectrum of many of those matches, but that's okay.

“In many ways, my career has gone better than maybe I thought was possible sometimes. Of course I always dreamed about winning tournaments like this or Grand Slams or becoming World No. 1, and I've been fairly close.”

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Ruud made clear it has not been the case that he has “choked” leads away. His opponents in those finals were Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Stefanos Tsitsipas.

“I’ve just played [opponents] that were better than me, and I've tried to learn from that, and I think that one day there will come another opportunity and maybe I can seize it and, I guess, that was the key to the victory today,” Ruud said. “Jack is an incredible player, and he will only get better and better, and I knew that based on the previous six losses that if I don't bring my A game, I have nothing to do there on court, so that was the mentality.”

It was the first Lexus ATP Head2Head meeting between Ruud and Draper, and both entered the final with various levels of momentum. Ruud began his Mutua Madrid Open in 24th in the PIF ATP Live Race To Turin, while Draper was as confident as ever following his maiden Masters 1000 triumph at Indian Wells.

“If you look at my year this year, there's been one really good tournament, which was Dallas, where I reached a final, and other than that, it's been earlier losses than I hoped, more losses than I hoped,” Ruud said. “But it's a long season, and I have tried to think about that. It's like a marathon, not a sprint, kind of that saying.

“The clay season is, I love it, but it's not that long. So I lost earlier than I wanted in Monte-Carlo and Barcelona, and the tournaments, the weeks, they go on, and if you don't do well, you kind of feel like, ‘Oh, I need to do well now’.”

A MASTERS 1000 CHAMPION FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME 🤩@mutuamadridopen | #MMOpen pic.twitter.com/HeN6OWQqA1

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Ruud suffered early exits in Monte-Carlo and Barcelona for his standards, winning just three of five matches across the two events. But he has been working hard in the background to turn things around.

“Since Roland Garros last year, I've had quite many months of struggling and not many good results, so it's worth the wait,” Ruud said. “I think I've accepted that I've had to, or I took one or two steps back in my game and my feelings on court in order to take two or three steps forward again. Here in Madrid it feels like I've taken four steps forward, so that's a great feeling.”

Now Ruud is fifth in the Live Race and carrying confidence into another Masters 1000 event in Rome. Clay has long been the Norwegian’s haven and with a trophy from the Caja Magica, he is ready to attack the rest of the clay-court season.

“I will enjoy this tonight and prepare as well as I can for Rome in the coming days, and then after Rome, I'm entered for Geneva, and then after that, we'll see how it goes in Paris,” Ruud said. “But there's still some really exciting weeks coming up, and I guess a win here shows the other players also that I'm here to try to do well for the rest of the clay season.”