{"id":634563,"date":"2026-04-28T17:25:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T17:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/634563\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T17:25:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T17:25:10","slug":"tennis-atp-mutua-madrid-open-2026-ruud-eliminates-tsitsipas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/634563\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis, ATP \u2013 Mutua Madrid Open 2026: Ruud eliminates Tsitsipas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Casper Ruud, the No 12 seed, saved two consecutive match points to beat Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-7 (4), 7-6 (2), 7-6 (3) in nearly three hours on Tuesday and advance to the quarter-finals of the Mutua Madrid Open, extending his winning streak at the Caja M\u00e1gica to nine matches.<\/p>\n

Tsitsipas served for the match at 5-3 in the third set and held two match points. Ruud erased both, broke back, and never looked like losing again \u2014 winning the tiebreak 7-3 with a passing shot at 3-3 that he later identified as the turning point.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very close to going home already,\u201d Ruud said on court. \u201cI\u2019m proud of the way I came back and fought. I had to refocus, change mindset and I think my passing shot at 3-3 in the tiebreak was the turning point.\u201d He grinned at his father in the stands, who let out a smile that told its own story.<\/p>\n

The defending champion had looked untouchable entering the match, having dropped just five games across his first two rounds. This was a different examination. Tsitsipas, ranked No 80 but playing as if the ranking were a fiction, had not conceded a single break point in four matches in Madrid \u2013 beating Kypson, Bublik and Merida with an authority his world ranking could not explain.<\/p>\n

Tsitsipas back at it<\/p>\n

He arrived at the Caja M\u00e1gica on a three-match losing streak, at the lowest ranking since February 2018, and produced some of the best tennis of his season. It was not enough.<\/p>\n

What Tsitsipas leaves Madrid with, nonetheless, is a foundation. During the tournament he became the fourth player to record 100 clay-court wins this decade. He had spoken during the week about rediscovering joy on the court \u2013 \u201cthe joy of the game on its own allows you to feel fulfilled already when you\u2019re on the court\u201d \u2014 and the match against Ruud felt like the most vivid expression of that. He lost. He played very well.<\/p>\n


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Ruud added: \u201cNot sure what it is, but I really like my time here. This tournament is fantastic. Some of you might know I came here as a young kid to watch the tournament. Maybe that\u2019s where it all began for me in Madrid.\u201d He faces the winner of the match between Francisco Cerundolo, the No 16 seed, and Alexander Blockx in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Casper Ruud, the No 12 seed, saved two consecutive match points to beat Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-7 (4), 7-6…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-634563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634563","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=634563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}