Casper Ruud suggests players know that they will have to play the best match of their life for a few hours if they want to beat Rafael Nadal on clay. Ruud, 24, has established himself as one of the best clay court players in the game as eight of his nine titles have come on clay.
But even Ruud didn’t have much luck against Nadal in the 2022 French Open final as the Spaniard ousted the Norwegian 6-3 6-3 6-0. “If you want to beat Rafa at Roland-Garros, when you go to the match, you say to yourself: ‘OK, I’m going to have to play the best match of my life for at least four and a half hours’
-half an hour because even if I play very well, he will play an incredible return. If I play well, he [Nadal] is playing well, so it’s going to be a long game. I think not many players are ready to do that and that’s why you’ve seen some of the players succeed on clay,” Ruud said on Eurosport’s Ruud Talk podcast.
Casper Ruud likes to play on clay.
Ruud on being a player who likes to play on clay Clay is not really the preferred surface for players. Now Ruud confirms that notion, saying that when the clay court season starts “there are people who really don’t want to be there.”
For a player like Ruud who likes to play, it’s an advantage. “If you look at the top 100 players in the world, I would say probably 70 or 75 of them prefer to play on hard courts. There are far fewer players who prefer to play on clay.
I feel like one of them and I think that might be a bit of an advantage. When we get to clay, there are people who really don’t want to be there at all. They want to prepare for the grass season and are looking forward to the rest of the year after clay,” said Ruud.
