Casper Ruud admits stomach ache ‘limited’ him in Roland Garros exit

Casper Ruud has detailed the stomach issue that affected him during his Roland Garros semi-final defeat, admitting that he ‘wasn’t able to keep the intensity and the energy level up’.

Ruud was beaten by fourth seed Alexander Zverev, 2-6 6-2 6-4 6-2, enabling the German moving into his first Roland Garros final.

The Norwegian had reached the Roland Garros final in both 2022 and 2023, but could not make it a hat-trick despite winning the first set in comfortable fashion.

Before the match with Zverev, Ruud had three days off after Novak Djokovic withdrew from their quarter-final match due to injury, and the 25-year-old expressed his frustration that the stomach issue came on the day that he was playing a match.

“It was a little bit unfortunate. I started well. Towards the middle, end of the first set, I started feeling some discomfort, an ache in my stomach,” explained Ruud. “So I wasn’t able to keep the intensity and the energy level up. It was something that was bothering me, just kind of limiting me.”

He continued, “It was a pity. It’s not something I think is very serious or going to last for a long time, but something that came up in the first set.

“I don’t have the answers now, but I just [am] disappointed that it had to be today. Why couldn’t it be yesterday or day before when I had three days off? So it was a bit unlucky. I was really looking forward to the match. In a way I started well, but yeah, I wasn’t able to keep it up, unfortunately.”

Although Ruud has not been able to match his previous results at Roland Garros, the world No.7 has won the biggest title of his career during the current clay court season in Barcelona.

And the three-time major finalist spoke about how pleased he was with his season so far, while still hoping for more improvements, “I’m very pleased with how the season has been so far. In my game I’ve tried to make a few adjustments and improvements, and I think that they’ve come along pretty well.

“Still, there’s a long way to go where I feel like I’m 100% satisfied, and I think that’s a good thing. I don’t feel like I’m complete yet as a player, very far from it. So I still have a lot of things to work on.”

The 12-time ATP title winner added, “But the season has been great, I would say, to sum it up. This result here in Paris is, in my eyes, a great result, and it was unfortunate and a pity today that it ended this way. But I consider it, let’s say, the first half of the year very good, and I’m looking forward to having some time off.”

WHAT A FEELING!!???????? pic.twitter.com/cIAFBJIAxV

— Casper Ruud (@CasperRuud98) April 22, 2024

Ruud is now not scheduled to compete until Wimbledon, having not entered any warm-up grass court tournaments for a second consecutive year.

Inside the baseline…

It was a huge disappointment for Casper Ruud, who like he said had three days to get this stomach ache, but just had to get it on the day of his semi-final match. Despite the loss, Ruud did really well to get that first set in convincing fashion and had he not been hampered may very well be into a third successive final in Paris. It is a shame that Ruud is not looking to give the grass court season a proper go again this year, but understandably clay will be taking the priority once again with the Paris Olympics coming up.

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