TURIN (Italy): Casper Ruud will face Danil Medvedev in the last four ATP finals after coming from behind to defeat Andrey Rublev 2-6, 7-5, 7-6 (7/5) on Friday.
Both players knew victory at Alpitour’s headmark in Turin would take them to the semi-finals Saturday and Ruud seemed to come from behind to make sure he would take the number two world at the end of the season.
Fifth seed Rublev came to the unbeaten match in the previous four meetings with Ruud but after a strong start to fall into a decent defeat, failed to qualify for the KO round from the Green Green Group.
The way Rublev walked through the first set suggested a quick win but Ruud again struggled in the second set, forcing a higher ranking opponent into an unplanted error and hit 13 winners because he violated the set.
Rublev looked angry by the way the performance was down, took the frustration on his racket after allowing Ruud to return to the game four to raise the set at 2-2 when he had a match with the neck.
From there Ruud gained further confidence and didn’t even unfold when the service was broken in the third five set game, hitting it straight back to the score level.
He finally came through tie ties after a tense round game was held to serve, where the two players pulled several beautiful shots, to make big clashes with our opening Champion Medvedev.