- Casper Ruud (ATP 7) is in the final of the US Open for the first time in his career.
- In the semifinals, the Norwegian Karen Chatschanow (ATP 31) finished 7: 6 (7: 5), 6: 2, 5: 7, 6: 2.
- In the final, Ruud meets the winner of the match between Carlos Alcaraz and Frances Tiafoe.
Casper Ruud can continue to dream of his first triumph in a Grand Slam tournament. The Norwegian prevailed against Karen Khachanov in 4 sets in the semi-finals of the US Open and also kept the chance to become the new number 1 in the world rankings on Monday. In a one-sided fourth set, Ruud scored his first match ball after exactly three hours.
As sovereign as Ruud ended the game, he started the game with mistakes. Although the Norwegian immediately went 2-0 up, he then acted surprisingly incorrectly and was even faced with a break deficit in the middle of the first set.
But because Khachanov also acted extremely nervously and gave back his lead, the first round had to be decided in a tie-break. The ball went over the net a whopping 55 times at Satzball Ruud before the Scandinavian brought the set dry with a strong backhand longline.
Demonstration of power in the 2nd movement
Ruud took the momentum of the won set into the second round. The 23-year-old appeared transformed and hardly made any more mistakes. While the Norwegian had 13 unforced errors in the first set, there were only 2 in the second round. He took the serve from Khachanov just as often. Because he remained untouchable with his own service and didn’t concede a single (!) point to the Russian, winning the set after 33 minutes was a fact.
With the out in mind, Chatschanow was able to call on his strengths again in the third set and didn’t let anything burn with his own serve. When the majority of the spectators in the Arthur Ashe Stadium were already expecting a tie-break, Ruud entered a phase of weakness, which Khachanov exploited and shortened to 1:2 sentences. But it should stay with the temporary rearing up.