Rune overwhelms Ruud in Barcelona: top 10 approaches for Musetti

Holger Rune dominates Casper Ruud. He wins his first semifinal match at the ATP 500 in Barcelona with authority. A match without history, lasting less than 90 minutes, in which the young Danish talent showed off his entire repertoire, imposing himself with a clear 6-4,6-2.

The match opened with Ruud immediately in trouble on serve: Rune proved aggressive from the first serves, taking a break lead already in the opening game. The Dane reads Ruud’s second serves perfectly, putting him under pressure and forcing him to commit errors. The second break came shortly thereafter. Rune still brilliant in prolonged exchanges and surgical in hitting with the long backhand.

In spite of a small reaction attempt by Ruud, who manages to recover one of the two breaks, Rune remains solid and closes the first set without further risk. The most telling statistic? The 81 percent of points won with the first serve by the Dane and an absolute domination on the backhand side, where he made the real difference.

In the second set we expected a pride reaction from the Norwegian. This did not occur. In fact, the response was totally the opposite. Ruud collapsed mentally and technically. 11 unforced errors against just 2 forehand winners alone explain the course of the partial. Rune, for his part, simply kept his concentration high, waiting for his opponent’s errors.

With this victory Rune has hit a historic semifinal. He redeemed his only previous appearance in Barcelona in 2021, when he was eliminated in the first round by Ramos Vinolas. For Ruud, on the other hand, bad news also comes from the rankings: as of Monday he will drop out of the top ten after more than a year, making way most likely for Lorenzo Musetti. If Shelton and Rune both lose in their respective semifinals in Barcelona and Munich, the Italian would enter the world’s top ten players for the first time in his career.