Casper Ruud battled past a very solid Jiri Lehecka to book the third round of the Canadian Open, and after the match, Ruud admitted he was a bit lucky.
Ruud is not the strongest hard-court player on the ATP Tour, but reaching the US Open final last year proved that he's pretty capable of playing well on the surface. He didn't do that in his first match in Toronto, getting almost beaten by Jiri Lehecka.
The Czech player saved a set point to set up a first-set tiebreak but then jumped out to a 4-0 lead. Despite that and despite holding a 6-4 lead later, Lehecka went on to lose four points in a row giving Ruud a chance to escape with the set. He then won the second set as well and admitted that he pushed himself to stay in the match.
I just kind of said to myself, 'Don't give up. Honestly the last couple of losses I've had in the last month have been going away from me too quickly, I've lost a couple sets 0-6, which is not a good feeling.
I was down 0/4 in that tie-break and I said, 'I'm just going to somehow get my claws and keep holding onto this score. Luckily I got two mini-breaks back and then saved a couple set points. It's sometimes just about luck, margins being on your side and luckily today they were on my side when I really needed it.
Ruud avoided complicating things in the second set winning it far easier than the first set and that was largely because he started to settle in nicely. That is what is expected of him because he's been one of the more consistent performers yearly which a recent stat showed.
Towards the end of the second set, I was starting to feel better. I was hitting cleaner and serving much better. First set and second set, a little bit of a difference but I'm happy with the way I progressed through the match.
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