Los Cabos [Mexico], February 24 : The World No. 2 Casper Ruud produced a near-flawless serving display to defeat defending champion Stefanos Tsitsipas at the Mifel Tennis Open.
The Norwegian will face eighth seed Jordan Thompson in Saturday's final.
The fourth-seeded Norwegian survived five-set chances in the second set to win in straight sets, 6-4, 7-6(4), after having a commanding start to the semi-final.
In the opening set, Ruud did not lose a point on the first serve (14/14), but as the second set progressed, Tsitsipas started to find his range on the return. Before taking a 4/0 lead in the tie-break, Ruud managed to escape from 0/40 and 15/40 in back-to-back service games from 4-5 thanks to his unwavering baseline play.
"It was a really close match, all in all, especially the second set. I was fortunate to save a few set points there and hold him off. I was just a bit lucky, and in the tie-break, I played really well from the beginning. So I'm very happy with the win," he said in a post-match as quoted by ATP.
Ruud improved to 17-21 versus Top 20 opponents on the surface to reach his 19th tour-level final (10-8) and his fifth on hard courts. Tsitsipas, who was attempting to successfully defend a title for the third time (Monte-Carlo, 2022-2023 and Marseille, 2019-20), has now dropped six straight games against Top 20 opponents.
Ruud now leads the two in their Lexus ATP Head2Head series, 2-1, as a consequence of the outcome. Their encounter in Los Cabos marked their first meeting since they shared the spoils of two 2021 ATP Masters 1000 matches in Toronto (Tsitsipas) and Madrid (Ruud).
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