French Open Highlights – Fourth seed Casper Ruud clinched a dominant 6-3, 6-4, 6-0 win against Alexander Zverev in the semifinal at the French Open 2023 on Friday, 9th June 2023. With the win, the Norwegian enters his second successive final at Roland Garros. He will next face Novak Djokovic in the summit clash on Sunday.
“Honestly I just went out there and tried to play without too many feelings, without thinking too much,” said Ruud in his on-court interview. “If it’s towards the end of the tournament, everyone here playing today has done well anyway. So I tried to play without pressure, without thinking too much, and not to play with too much emotion, if that makes sense.
“Today just went really well. From the beginning to the last point everything was going my way, luckily, and I’m just very happy to win this match.”
Zverev dropped his opening service game of the match but immediately responded with a break of his own in the third game for 1-2. That was as good as it got for the German, who did not break his opponent’s serve again. Ruud notched another break in the next game and was hugely effective at blunting the 22nd seed’s booming delivery with some razor-sharp returning throughout.
A solitary break in the seventh game was enough for Ruud to seal the second set and he raced to victory from there as a tiring Zverev struggled to stick with his opponent. The fourth seed cruised to the third set without facing a break point to complete his triumph and level his ATP Head2Head series with the German at 2-2.
French Open Highlights: Casper Ruud defeats Alexander Zverev in straight sets in semifinal