World No. 7 Casper Ruud discussed his heavy defeat (0/6, 1/6) at the hands of Jannik Sinner in the quarterfinals of the Rome Masters.
Asked to describe the match and Sinner`s seemingly perfect performance, Ruud agreed: “Yeah, yeah, from what I saw, it`s the closest thing to perfect – at least from those I`ve played. You have to give him credit.”
“In the first four games, maybe I made a couple of unforced errors on the forehand trying to attack but missed. Everything else that came my way throughout the match felt like a hundred miles an hour or more. Every shot – forehand, backhand. Even on my shots, which sometimes I feel are quite powerful, he responded with what felt like cannonballs.”
“It`s insanely impressive. There`s nothing more to say.”
When asked if he felt he could have offered any resistance against such play, Ruud replied: “Well, my serve was probably what let me down the most today. If I had served better, of course, I would have gotten more easy points.”
“In baseline rallies, I might have won one or two long rallies. Although, thinking about it, I`m not even sure if I won any. It seems there might have been one or two. In most exchanges, he was better than me, even though I felt like I was trying to construct the points the way I needed to. But he was everywhere.”
“It`s like saying when someone is in the zone, it feels like they have two forehands – one on the right side, one on the left. In his case, it`s almost like two backhands, because his backhand is also incredibly good.”
“It felt like playing against a wall that`s constantly sending balls back at you at a hundred miles an hour,” Ruud concluded in his post-match interview.
