By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Wednesday, May 28, 2025
Photo credit: Mateo Villalba/Getty
A cranky left knee and gritty Nuno Borges turned Roland Garros round two into May Day for Casper Ruud.
World No. 41 Borges toppled two-time French Open finalist Ruud 2-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-0 to make his mark as the Portuguese man to reach a Roland Garros third round in tournament history.
Weeks after capturing his maiden ATP Masters 1000 championship in Madrid, Ruud made ignominious history of his own.
It is Ruud’s earliest exit in Paris since his 2018 debut. Ruud saw his quest for a fourth consecutive Roland Garros semifinal go up in a cloud of red dust as he hobbled through losing 12 of the 13 games.
“It’s hopefully nothing too serious. For the last couple of weeks I’ve been kind of struggling a little bit with knee pain on and off,” Ruud told the media in Paris. “That’s why I decided to pull out of Geneva after Rome, do my best, and heal to be ready here.
“When you’re practicing, leading up to the tournament, it’s easier to avoid certain movements that are painful. It’s not painful. Everything is not painful. But certain movements out there are kind of what makes it painful. Certain shots are painful to do.
“When you’re playing matches, you can’t really control it in the same way. You do everything you can to get to every ball. Sometimes you kind of forget that this is a shot I shouldn’t go for maybe in terms of pain in the knee. That’s pretty much all.”
The seventh-seeded Ruud joins fourth-seeded Taylor Fritz, who fell to Daniel Altmaier in round one, and Daniil Medvedev, who served for the match before bowing to Cameron Norrie in a five-set thriller yesterday, as the third Top 11-men’s seed to fall in the first two rounds.
“I actually felt it quite early in the first set,” Ruud told the media in Paris. “I can tell you like one of the shots that hurts the most is to do, like, sliding on the left foot, an open-stance backhand is what hurts the most, as it’s the left knee.
“It’s very, very specific. But when you rotate my foot inward, it also hurts a little on the left. That’s kind of the worst shot for me and has been for a few weeks. I’ve tried not to show the opponents that it is.”
Ruud hit the “rat race” that is the ATP Tour with a parting shot saying the hectic schedule, ranking points at play and financial penalty if you miss a mandatory event compel players to compete even when they’re injured.
“It’s kind of like a rat race when it comes to the rankings, as well,” Ruud told the media in Paris. “Of course, if my leg is broken, I won’t play. But it’s tough anyways, especially when there’s a time with mandatory events to skip them because the punishments are quite hard, in terms of everyone else will play, gain points, and you won’t.
“Also there’s a certain bonus system set up that is reduced if you don’t show up to the mandatory events. It’s a questionable system because on one hand you don’t want to show up injured, and you maybe give the spot to other one.
“I’m not sure if you’re aware, but if you don’t play a mandatory event, they cut 25% of your year-end bonus. You’re kind of forcing players to show up injured or sick, or whatever, when that is not what I think is very fair.”
Borges beat Ruud for the first time in three meetings and has now reached the third round at three of the four Slams: Australian Open, Roland Garros and US Open.
Next up for Borges is a third-round clash vs. Alexei Popyrin. The 25th-seeded Aussie swept Alejandro Tabilo 7-5, 6-3, 6-4.
Ruud said the five-day break he took after Rome wasn’t enough to remedy his cranky knee.
The former US Open finalist left open the prospect of skipping grass-court season—grass is his least favorite surface—to try to recover. Ruud has yet to surpass the Wimbledon second round in five career SW19 appearances
“We’ll see,” Ruud replied when asked if he will shut down grass season. “I’ll go home and do some more scans as soon as possible and see if there’s anything that has changed.
“But between Rome and here, I took five days completely off at home. It wasn’t enough to make the pain go away. I definitely think that I would need more than five days off, then take a status in a week or two, see where I’m at.
“I wish I could stay here longer. It leaves more time, of course, to recover for upcoming tournaments.”
