Casper Ruud is not enjoying tennis right now as he suffered another shocking loss at the 2023 Japan Open to Marcos Giron.
Ruud has very little chance of finding himself in Turin, and this defeat just cements that. If he doesn't make it, he won't be in Turin for the first time in a few years, as his 2023 season hasn't been very good.
It's something that he talked about earlier this year, expecting a year of regression, and he still played the Roland Garros final, so it's not all terrible. Yet, his performance in this match was below his level.
Giron is a capable player who is good on various surfaces and has been playing some really solid tennis lately. He won this match by approaching the match in a really smart way.
He served well the entire match, which was a huge part of him winning this as he allowed minimal chances to Ruud. He only lost 8 points behind his first serve the entire match, and that's pretty good.
He further attacked Ruud's second serve, which is quite lacking and it gave him all sorts of problems. The Norwegian didn't play a really great match and even when he had chances, he didn't use them properly.
He never really stood a chance in the opening set, losing it comfortably 6-3. The second set actually saw Ruud play much better as he jumped out to a 4-2 lead.
It seemed like we were going to a third set, but then Ruud completely collapsed. It's not the first time he collapsed this year like this, as he lost four games in a row to lose the match in two sets.
It was just a terrible result for Ruud, who will hope to turn around his season in Paris. The final score was 6-3 6-4 for Giron, who is putting together a really solid run lately.
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