GENEVA, May 22, 2021
Norwegian young gun Casper Ruud has clinched his second ATP Tour title by winning the Gonet Geneva Open held at the Tennis Club de Genève. The 21-year-old, No. 3 seed of the ATP 250 clay-court tournament, defeated second favourite Denis Shapovalov 7-6(4), 6-4 in Saturday’s singles final.
After a first-round bye, Ruud beat US-American Tennys Sandgren, Dominik Koepfer of Germany and Spaniard Pablo Andujar and dropped only one set en-route to the championship match. The World No. 21 withstood eight aces from Shapovalov and won 54 per cent of the total points played to seal victory in one hour and 41 minutes.
Rock Solid Ruud 🇳🇴👊
A superb week on Geneva’s red clay for @CasperRuud98 as he defeats Shapovalov 7-6 6-4 to claim his 2nd career title! pic.twitter.com/OFIVz6k7fh
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) May 22, 2021
“It was a tough first set, it was very close,” Ruud said. “We were both serving great so there weren’t that many rallies after the serve on both sides because of the high level. But in the tie-break there were some rallies here and there… Happily for me I won the first set, and I think that gave me a little bit of confidence to calm down a little bit – not to relax, but to play more freely.”
Following his maiden triumph in Buenos Aires, Argentina in February last year, Ruud pocketed €41,145 as well as 250 ATP Ranking points in western Switzerland.
“It feels great that I’ve been playing well lately and reaching the later stages in my past tournaments,” Ruud said in his post-match press conference. “It is a big confidence-booster ahead of Roland Garros… It was a close match today and it could have gone either way.”
Peers/Venus earn doubles title
Earlier in the day, John Peers from Australia and Michael Venus of New Zealand took the doubles title. The No. 2 seeds defeated Italian Simone Bolelli and Maximo Gonzalez from Argentina 6-2, 7-5. The encounter lasted one hour and 16 minutes.
“It was definitely a tough week,” Peers told ATPTour.com after winning their fourth team title. “We tried three times to get on court for our first match and the ground staff did an incredible job to get the courts ready. It was a nice, sunny day for the final and it was good fun.”
Venus added: “I didn’t know we had a 4-0 record in finals! It shows that when we’re confident and playing well good things happen. Hopefully we can use this confidence going forwards.”
