2 Things that stood out in Francisco Cerundolo's R2 win over Casper Ruud at Paris Masters

Francisco Cerundolo of Argentina beat eighth seed Casper Ruud of Norway 7-5 6-4 in a second-round match at the Paris Masters last Wednesday, Nov. 1. The 25-year-old Argentine won the match in less than two hours, as Ruud suffered yet another underwhelming defeat to a lesser-ranked player.

Cerundolo will take on Hubert Hurkacz of Poland in the third round on Thursday. Hurkacz might be the slight favourite, but Cerundolo will be no pushover. In fact, the Argentine’s solid baseline-game might trouble the big Pole on the day.

On that note, let us take a look at two things that stood out in the match:

#1. Ruud committed a lot of errors off his backhand:

Cerundolo kept pushing Ruud to the latter’s backhand corner with his crosscourt backhand from the very beginning. The Norwegian quite evidently struggled with his backhand and kept hitting them long.

However, as the match progressed, Ruud started going around his backhand more often and taking the ball with his forehand, but that always remained an area of concern for him.

Cerundolo broke Ruud in the third game of the first set to take a 2-1 lead and then extended it to 3-1 by holding his serve. However, the Norwegian then broke back to level the score. However, he was broken once again in the 11th game of the set, committing a double fault on break point.

Cerundolo then served the set out in the next game to take a 1-0 lead in the match.

#2. Ruud played his shots higher, but Cerundolo’s backhand proved to be effective:

Rudd started playing his shots higher in the second set, imparting a certain amount of top spin in them. However, Cerundolo held his own from the baseline. His down-the-line backhand from the ad court proved to be a very effective shot and won him a number of points.

The Argentine got the decisive break of serve in the second set, too, by breaking Ruud in the seventh game. He then extended his lead to 5-3 by holding his serve and then served the match out in the 10th game of the set.

Cerundolo and Ruud were almost on level terms as far winning points on their respective first serves was concerned. However, the Norwegian was able to win only 52% of the points on his second serve, while the Argentine managed a much better 71%, which made the difference in the end.