{"id":156746,"date":"2025-09-20T09:16:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T09:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/156746\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T09:16:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T09:16:09","slug":"reilly-opelka-says-what-is-totally-bizarre-about-the-tennis-courts-at-the-laver-cup-after-losing-to-casper-ruud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/156746\/","title":{"rendered":"Reilly Opelka says what is totally &#8216;bizarre&#8217; about the tennis courts at the Laver Cup after losing to Casper Ruud"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Team Europe got off to a great start in their title defence at the Laver Cup, taking a 3-1 lead against Team World on day one of the event. <\/p>\n<p>Jakub Mensik helped secure two of the points for his side by defeating Alex Michelsen in singles before emerging victorious alongside <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetennisgazette.com\/tag\/carlos-alcaraz\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> in doubles.<\/p>\n<p>The sole loss for Team Europe came in the battle of the debutants, where Flavio Cobolli lost to Joao Fonseca of Team World. <\/p>\n<p>The day began with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetennisgazette.com\/tag\/casper-ruud\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Casper Ruud<\/a> clinching a win over Reilly Opelka in straight sets, wrapping up the contest in an hour and 27 minutes. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GettyImages-2236333664-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Casper Ruud acknowledges the crowd on day one of the Laver Cup.\" \/>Photo by Clive Brunskill\/Getty Images for Laver CupReilly Opelka reacts to his defeat to Casper Ruud at the Laver Cup<\/p>\n<p>The American, one of the fastest servers on tour, has his biggest weapon taken away from him on the slow surface of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetennisgazette.com\/tag\/Laver-Cup\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Laver Cup<\/a> courts. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s the surface or the ball or the combination, but it\u2019s quite unique,\u201d said Opelka in his press conference after the match. <\/p>\n<p>He explained: \u201cIt\u2019s just bizarre. It\u2019s kind of like a sandpaper surface with a ball that really puffs up. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was also able to use it for my advantage. I won a lot of points at the baseline today, because a guy like Casper, if I give him a high forehand, it\u2019s point over no matter where in the court it is.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GettyImages-2236333711-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Laver Cup 2025 - Day 1\" \/>Photo by Ezra Shaw\/Getty Images for Laver Cup<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn a court like this today, I got to be able to defend and work my way back into some rallies.<br \/>It works for both sides.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, I might not get 25 aces on this surface, but I\u2019m also going to get some more chances and second, third chances at points that I normally wouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe just served really well today, where that wasn\u2019t the case. At one time, he didn\u2019t serve great; I had a bunch of break points.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Reilly Opelka says Casper Ruud is a \u2018great server\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Opelka said of Ruud: \u201c[He is a] great server. He\u2019s really good. It wasn\u2019t much of an anomaly on his end.<br \/>I\u2019m not so surprised.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe served maybe better than 80%, which I\u2019m sure is above his average by a good bit, but he\u2019s still 2 in the world.<\/p>\n<p>Casper Ruud\u2019s serving statistics against Reilly Opelka<\/p>\n<p>Aces: 5Double Faults: 0First Serve Percentage: 80%First Serve Win Percentage: 88%Second Serve Win Percentage: 69%<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGive him some credit. I\u2019m not surprised that he serves really well and has a really big forehand. He has had an insanely good career.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ruud\u2019s next match will be in doubles with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetennisgazette.com\/tag\/holger-rune\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Holger Rune<\/a> on day two of the Laver Cup, against the duo of Alex de Minaur and Alex Michelsen. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Team Europe got off to a great start in their title defence at the Laver Cup, taking a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,5565,78773,41371,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-156746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-casper-ruud","11":"tag-laver-cup","12":"tag-reilly-opelka","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}