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Match Details
Fixture: (4) Casper Ruud vs (22) Alexander Zverev
Date: Friday, June 9
Time: Not before 5:30 pm local time/ 9 pm IST/ 3:30 pm GMT/ 9:30 am ET
Tournament: French Open 2023
Round: Semifinal
Venue: Paris, France
Category: Grand Slam
Surface: Outdoor clay
Prize money: €49,600,000
Live telecast: USA - Tennis Channel, NBC Sports, Peacock TV | Canada - TSN | UK - Eurosport | India - Sony Ten
Casper Ruud vs Alexander Zverev preview
Fourth seed Casper Ruud will take on 22nd seed Alexander Zverev in a rousing French Open semifinal.
Ruud dominated large swathes of his last-eight clash with his Scandinavian counterpart Holger Rune. The 2022 Roland Garros finalist swept to a two-set lead for the loss of three games.
Rune stopped the rot by taking the third, but Ruud reasserted his ascendancy in the contest, breaking for 3-1 in the fourth. Although he squandered two match points at 5-3 on Rune's serve, the World No. 4 served out victory to reach his second straight Roland Garros semifinal.
Ruud is now 21-11 on the season, including 16-5 on clay, and 18-5 at the claycourt Major, where he has won 11 of his last 12 matches.
Meanwhile, World No. 27 Zverev saw off Grand Slam quarterfinal debutant Tomas Martin Etcheverry to reach his third straight Roland Garros semifinal. In a tasty tussle between two heavy hitters, Zverev took the opener before Etcheverry levelled proceedings in the second.
The German, though, took the decisive two-sets-to-one lead. He then survived a barrage of heavy hitting from Etcheverry in the 10th game before sealing victory in three hours and 22 minutes.
Zverev is now 21-14 on the season and 28-7 at Roland Garros, where he made the last four in 2021 and 2022 as well.
Casper Ruud vs Alexander Zverev head-to-head
Ruud has won only one of his three meetings with Zverev, with the latter leading their head-to-head 2-1. However, their last clash in the Miami quarterfinals last year went the Norwegian's way.
This will be their first meeting on clay.
Casper Ruud vs Alexander Zverev odds
All odds as per BETMGM
Casper Ruud vs Alexander Zverev prediction
Both Ruud and Zverev can serve big, are heavy hitters off both flanks and also move well. The latter aspect is especially true for the German, considering his height.
However, Ruud takes the edge in terms of his marginally superior experience, consistency and pedigree, especially on clay, where they have similar records. The Norwegian is 115-42 on the surface, where he has won nine of his 10 singles titles, while Zverev is 121-47, winning six titles.
Both players are coming off four-set quarterfinal wins. Zverev is quietly playing some of the best tennis of his career, while Ruud is returning to his 2022 level after a slow start to this season.
There's very little to separate the two players, but expect the more consistent Ruud to return to the Roland Garros final.
Pick: Casper Ruud in four sets
