Casper Ruud reaches final in Madrid, now a win away from biggest title of career

Casper Ruud moved through to his first Mutua Madrid Open final on Friday, holding off giant-killer Francisco Cerundolo in the semifinals of the Masters 1000 event, 6-4, 7-5.

And with that, he'll make a notable ranking move—having dropped from No. 10 to No. 15 last week, his first time outside the Top 10 in more than a year, he'll now bounce right back into the elite, rising from No. 15 to No. 10 just by reaching the final.

He could move even higher with a title, to No. 7 or No. 8.

The Norwegian is also a win away from his biggest title—he's won 12 ATP titles, but all at the ATP 250 or ATP 500 level.

This will be his seventh final at one of the tour's "big" events.

RUUD IN FINALS AT MASTERS 1000 LEVEL OR HIGHER (0-6):

• '22 Miami F: l. to Alcaraz, 7-5, 6-4
• '22 Roland Garros F: l. to Nadal, 6-3, 6-3, 6-0
• '22 US Open F: l. to Alcaraz, 6-4, 2-6, 7-6, 6-3
• '22 ATP Finals F: l. to Djokovic, 7-5, 6-3
• '23 Roland Garros F: l. to Djokovic, 7-6, 6-3, 7-5
• '24 Monte Carlo F: l. to Tsitsipas, 6-1, 6-4
• '25 Madrid F: TBD

Although it was a straight-set scoreline, Friday's match was anything but straightforward, as Ruud had to battle back to win both sets—Cerundolo was up a break in the first set at 3-2, and twice up a break in the second set at 2-1 and 4-3.

And after breaking right back all three times, Ruud wasn't out of the woods yet, even having to dig his way out of triple break point serving at 5-all, 0-40 later in the second set.

But he clawed back every time en route to the one-hour, 53-minute victory over the No. 21-ranked Argentine.

Afterwards, in his on-court interview, he talked about the injury he took a medical time-out for early in the match.

"I wasn't sure I was going to be able to finish the match," he said.

"I felt something in my rib during warm-up, right before going out, and I felt in on almost every single shot, especially the serve. Luckily I got some quick treatment on it. There's not much you can do, only three minutes, so we'll go and check it out more now. But I got a couple of pain-killers—not the ideal thing, but in a situation like this you have to do that every now and then, and I was able to just try to play one game at a time, really.

"It was easing and getting better as the match went on—you get warm, you get a little bit of adrenaline going. But I'm going to get it checked out now and hopefully it's nothing too bad."

Ruud's fighting spirit was on full display in the match stats—while his opponent actually finished with more winners than unforced errors, 28 to 27, the Norwegian made it through with a negative ratio, 17 to 26, even saving 15 of the 18 break points he faced.

He converted five of his own nine break points.

Awaiting him in the final will be either Jack Draper or Lorenzo Musetti, who played the second semifinal later in the day.

Ruud has never played Draper, and he's 1-1 against Musetti at tour-level (2-1 including matches below tour-level), though they haven't played each other in almost two years.