Casper Ruud’s Roland Garros dream came to a shocking end on Wednesday, the No. 7 seed looking visibly hampered by injury en route to a 2-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-0 second-round defeat to Nuno Borges.
"For the last couple of weeks I've been kind of struggling a little bit with knee pain on and off," Rudd confirmed in his post-match press conference. "That's why I decided to pull out of Geneva after Rome, do my best, and heal to be ready here."
The two-time finalist came to Paris having captured his first Masters 1000 title at the Mutua Madrid Open and won his first round in straight sets against Spanish qualifier Albert Ramos Viñolas. But the pre-tournament favorite struggled to move as Borges rallied from a set down and took a medical timeout before losing a 6-0 fourth set on Court Suzanne-Lenglen.
"When you're practicing, leading up to the tournament, it's easier to avoid certain movements that are painful," Ruud explained. "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. It's been okay in practice because, like I said, I'm able to control it a bit more. When you play a match, you go full on, no matter what happens. I don't want to take anything away from Nuno, because I think he played a phenomenal match, a really high level.
"A few shots out there are a bit painful for me to do. Other than that, it's kind of everything, it's not more than this."