Is Casper Ruud even better now than his best year? His answer will surprise you

Speaking about how the match developed, Ruud said: “Yeah, interesting match. And not maybe the most typical of clay court matches where you go like really three close sets and this and that, grinding. But it was a bit interesting.

“I mean, I started great and really took care of my chances in the first set, broke him two times on two break points, and kind of played almost a perfect or flawless set without too many errors and these things.

“So was kind of frustrating or annoying when the rain came in, and I was feeling like I had good momentum. And it was an interesting rain delay today, because it was around two-and-a-half hours. And it obviously didn’t rain for two-and-a-half hours.

“But the last hour, they were trying to fix the court because everything looked to be ready, except for one kind of corner back in the far right corner of the court was filled with water when they took the covers off. So they kept telling us ‘another 10 minutes, another 10 minutes, another 10 minutes’, and then we’ll be ready like three, four or five different times.

“When you hear the ‘be ready in 10 minutes’, you kind of try to keep warm, you try to keep moving, and you don’t let yourself eat too much, even though we probably should have today.

“So you’re just kind of snacking all this small stuff, like a banana, bar, easy stuff to get some energy. But we were kind of on our toes for 50 minutes to an hour before getting out, and it was a little demanding and kind of draining mentally.

“And then finally when we got out I didn’t find the court and Karen definitely did, and stuck it to me. And luckily, I woke up in the third and played some great tennis again to finish the match.”

The clash between Darderi and Jodar also faced a brief halt after smoke from a nearby Coppa Italia football final drifted over from Stadio Olimpico. Sinner is up against Andrey Rublev. Medvedev faces Martin Landaluce.

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