Last Updated on October 30, 2021
The 22-year-old Norwegian Casper Ruud won the San Diego tournament at Barnes Tennis Center, beating Britain’s Cameron Norrie 6-0, 6-2 in just over an hour.
Nitto ATP Finals
This is a TIGHT race. 👀@CasperRuud98 & @janniksin move up after gaining points in San Diego & Sofia respectively.
Next: @BNPPARIBASOPEN 🌴 #NittoATPFinals pic.twitter.com/iCtpxCGImK
— ATP Tour (@atptour) October 4, 2021
This moved Casper up to No. 8 in the ATP Finals race. In an interview with Tennis Majors, the Norwegian assessed his chances of qualifying for the ATP Finals.
I know I’m in the top eight of the Finals race. Jannick, Hubert and I have each won a title in the last couple of weeks and it’s crazy competition. I guess it’s just the three of us for the last two places. There are two Masters tournaments and an ATP-500 tournament in Vienna, so we can’t be complacent and think we’re done here.
That’s great. I think it should be. We have some serious competition, and whoever ends up at the Worlds will deserve it more than anyone else. But this win helped me a lot, especially since I hadn’t shown anything before at the end of the season. It’s great that I won another tournament,” Ruud said.
Popular Stories
Swap titles
After winning in San Diego, Casper Ruud joked that he wouldn’t mind swapping titles with world number one Novak Djokovic and number two from Russia Daniil Medvedev.
“It’s funny, but obviously Daniil and Novak have bigger titles, so I wouldn’t mind swapping if I had the opportunity to swap five ATP-250 tournament titles for the three Slams and one ATP-250 tournament that Novak won.
It’s a little bit higher level, but that’s okay. I think it’s more impressive than five ATP-250 titles, but I’d trade up. It would be fun to end the year with the most titles, I’m not going to lie.
I tried to play really well in the finals, knowing it was a “now or never” moment. I was perfect in the finals this year, five out of five. I played against good players in every one of them,” said Ruud in an interview with Tennis World USA.
Simply sensational 👏
🇳🇴 @CasperRuud98 becomes the first man to win FIVE tour-level titles in 2021 after claiming the #SanDiegoOpen title 🏆 pic.twitter.com/ye4NDiXnmc
— ATP Tour (@atptour) October 4, 2021
World No. 10 Casper Ruud won five ATP250 tournaments this year. His final match against Cameron Norrie of Great Britain in San Diego was Ruud’s fifth win of the year. The Norwegian had previously won in Geneva, Bostad, Gstaad, and Kitzbühel. Ruud did not lose a single set in the final five meetings.
