After latest early exit in Indian Wells, what’s up with Casper Ruud?

WATCH: Ruud struggled for consistency through a nearly two-hour defeat to Garin at the BNP Paribas Open.

On a men’s tour besieged by ill-timed injuries, high-profile retirements, and myriad personal issues, Casper Ruud could be what one could consider an “unproblematic fave” among the proverbial Next Gen set.

The Norwegian has quietly and uncontroversially done the work over the two-year post-pandemic era, working his way up the rankings first slowly, then quickly, and culminating with a 2022 season that saw him reach four consequential finals—including two at Grand Slams, both Roland Garros and the US Open. He even earned a coveted spot in the first season of Netflix’s Break Point, chronicling his run to his first Grand Slam final in Paris.

But since ending last season with a runner-up finish at the Nitto ATP Finals, Ruud’s Top 3 form has all but abandoned him. At a time when he could have given himself a mathematical shot at the No. 1 ranking—having missed the 2022 Australian Open due to injury—he has failed to win back-to-back matches in all five of his tournament appearances thus far.

The latest disappointment came on Sunday when he endured an ugly defeat to Cristian Garin in the third round of the BNP Paribas Open, striking 29 unforced errors—20 off his hitherto superior forehand side—to exit the Masters 1000, 6-4, 7-6 (2), in just under two hours.

His frustration is likely only compounded by the belief that, after an underwhelming Australian summer, things were finally falling into place.

“I’ve had a couple of weeks of training and rest in February, and from Acapulco last week, my season has really started,” he said in his pre-tournament press conference. “I hope I can have a good result here.”

The 24-year-old indeed began 2023 without a traditional pre-season, having eschewed the rest he may have needed after a breakthrough year to play a series of exhibition tournaments in Central and South America with idol and academy training mate Rafael Nadal.

After a short vacation in the Maldives, he picked up his racquets again to play another exhibition in Abu Dhabi, part of the Middle Eastern swing of off-season tournaments that featured the likes of Carlos Alcaraz—who ended up injuring himself and missed the Australian Open—and Stefanos Tsitsipas, who came to Indian Wells openly undercooked thanks to a shoulder issue.

“I sort of was hoping to use United Cup period and Auckland to sort of train well and play a couple of matches before coming into this,” Ruud explained after a second-round Melbourne exit to Jenson Brooksby.

“It was maybe not enough to be able to perform well here this year. So, it will be considered by me and my team what we will do in December this year, and whether this was the right way to prepare for Australian Open or not.”

The unproblematic fave’s problems have nonetheless followed him to North America, where he is scheduled defend his first big batch of points next week in Miami after reaching the final last year.

Still, there is reason to believe his fortunes will soon change: for all his consistency in 2022, he left large swaths of points on the table with early defeats in Monte Carlo and Madrid, two clay-court events where he should expect to play his best tennis. His hard-court results have made him a Top 3 player, but clay will likely always remain foundational to his career, a surface on which he can optimize a heavy forehand that can sometimes sit up on quicker courts.

And though his losses have often featured brutal stats, they haven’t resulted from a lack of fight from Ruud, who battled from a break down in the second set to Garin and twice stood two points from a deciding set.

Sometimes derided for a more “boring” style of play, Ruud even pulled off a 'tweener in the midst of an otherwise unsatisfying afternoon:

“The margins are small these days,” he said back in Australia, “and I just realized that, you know, even though I don't feel like a worse player or that I'm in physically worse shape than I was during the US Open, for example. There I made the final; here I lost second round. That's how it is sometimes.”

Capable as he may be, how quickly Casper can change things from “how it is” to “how it was” remains an open question.