2024 is highly expected to be Rafael Nadal’s last year in professional tennis. Going into the Swedish Open in Bastad, Nadal and Casper Ruud have chosen to team up as the Spaniard looks to add another trophy to his illustrious career on his way out. The Norwegian looks to continue his excellent 2024 performance on clay.
Rafael Nadal will team up with Carlos Alcaraz in the Olympics, which will also be played on clay, so in preparation for the tournament the Spaniard has won once, the Spaniard is charging for Bastad “gold” in the doubles category with Casper Ruud.
Will this dynamic duo be able to win the tournament?
Nadal And Ruud Into The Semifinal
The high-profile pair of Nadal and Ruud defeated the pair of Theo Arribage and Roman Safiullin in their quarterfinal clash 6-4, 3-6, 12-10 to reach the semifinal.
In the first set, both teams held their serves confidently, with neither giving away a break point opportunity on serve to the next team until the seventh game of the first set. After team Nadal and Ruud produced a break point on Arribage and Safiullin’s serve, the French and Russian pair went on to falter on a double fault to gift Nadal and Ruud the break of their serve.
In the second game of the second set, two consecutive double faults from the Nadal and Ruud pairing led to Arribage and Safiullin getting a break of their serve. In the fifth game of the set, Nadal and Ruud got a break back. Sloppy play in the eighth game gave Arribage and Safiullin three break points on the Spaniard and Norwegian’s serve.
The Russian and Frenchman took the break of serve in the third opportunity and went on to serve out the set to win it 6-3. The resulting tiebreak was evenly balanced, with both players tied at 4-4 at a point in the tiebreak.
Arribage and Safiullin got the first match point at 10-9 on serve, but Nadal and Ruud snuffed out the advantage with a solid serving performance, producing a match point of their own in the process. The high-profile duo won the match at the first opportunity to enter the Bastad semifinal.
Nadal And Ruud In Bastad So Far
Rafael Nadal and Casper Ruud have formed the most exciting pairing in the men’s doubles in Bastad. Team Nadal and Ruud started the tournament on Monday against the pairing of Miguel Ángel Reyes-Varela and Guido Andreozzi in the first round of the tournament. The match ended 6-1, 6-4 in favor of the high-profile duo.
On Tuesday, Rafael Nadal was in the singles portion of the tournament against Leo Borg, the son of the legendary 11-time Grand Slam champion, Bjorn Borg. Rafael Nadal, the 14-time French Open champion, was returning to the clay court after falling to Alexander Zverev in the first round of the French Open. The Spaniard defeated his 21-year-old opponent 6-3, 6-4.
Casper Ruud then took on Thiago Monteiro earlier today in the singles category, aiming to go one better than last year where he lost in the final to Andrey Rublev. Monteiro was more ferocious than the Norwegian, defeating Ruud in straight sets, 6-3, 6-3.
Other Bastad Matches
In other matches, in the singles category, Roberto Carballés Baena defeated Denis Yevseyev in their first-round encounter, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2. The match was a much closer encounter than the score line may suggest, with the Kazakhstan professional breaking the Spaniard’s serve three times, one short of the Spaniard’s four.
Defending champion of the singles category, Andrey Rublev would start his title defense against Thiago Agustin Tirante in a second-round clash. The Argentinian defeated Portuguese Jaime Faria in the first round on Tuesday, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4. This would be the first time Rublev and Tirante would face each other on the ATP tour.
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