The match between Casper Ruud and Felipe Meligeni Alves at the 2024 Roland Garros had a storyline, which the Norwegian shared after the match.
Ruud started his 2024 Roland Garros campaign with a solid win over a tricky player from Brazil. That player was Felipe Meligeni Alves, and there is a tennis story between his family and Ruud's family.
Casper's father, Christian Ruud, was a tennis player whose only ATP Tour-level final came in Bastad many years ago, in 1995. That final in Bastad was contested against Alves' uncle, Fernando Meligeni, who won the match.
Therefore, Ruud desperately wanted to win the match at the Roland Garros to symbolically avenge his father's loss from many years ago. Christian Ruud would never reach a final again in his tennis career, so that was a pretty painful loss for him. Luckily, his son was there to symbolically avenge that, beating the Brazilian in three sets.
"We talked about it for breakfast, actually. My father, he lost Bastad final one time in his career, so he was never able to win a ATP tournament, and the guy he lost to in the final was Felipe's uncle."
"I think both me and my dad wanted to get some revenge on the Meligeni family. It was worth the wait, I guess. It was many years we had to wait, but we got it today."
The match itself was a pretty solid performance from Ruud, who has been playing great tennis on clay this year on clay. It was a good start to the clay-court major, as he hopes to make another deep run in the French capital. He's made two finals but never won the trophy, and he hopes to change that this year.
"It was a good start, level-wise from me. I think I played quite well today – not too many unforced errors, quite steady all the way and just trying to find my groove. I played quite well last week in Geneva and hope I can bring it here also to Paris."
"I think it's been a good season, a good clay season for me. Of course, Madrid and Rome could have gone maybe a little bit better. It was not what I was hoping for but other results went well."
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