{"id":672900,"date":"2026-05-16T06:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T06:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/672900\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T06:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T06:43:11","slug":"norways-ruud-cruises-into-italian-open-final-with-thrashing-of-darderi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/672900\/","title":{"rendered":"Norway&#8217;s Ruud cruises into Italian Open final with thrashing of Darderi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-testid=\"wcl-news-perex\" itemprop=\"description\">Casper Ruud reached the final of the Italian Open on Friday after dismantling Italy&#8217;s Luciano Darderi 6-1, 6-1 in a rain-interrupted match.<\/p>\n<p>Norwegian <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flashscore.com\/player\/ruud-casper\/zN9UpRqp\/\" data-analytics-element=\"ARTICLE_TEXT_LINK\" data-analytics-alias=\"internal\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ruud<\/a>, a specialist on clay, dealt with flamboyant <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flashscore.com\/player\/darderi-luciano\/jeXTxMIp\/\" data-analytics-element=\"ARTICLE_TEXT_LINK\" data-analytics-alias=\"internal\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Darderi<\/a> with the minimum of fuss, even after having to wait nearly two hours to restart a match he was already winning easily.<\/p>\n<p><img crossorigin=\"anonymous\" class=\"wcl-image_vG4MA\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" fetchpriority=\"auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/04bc96bb-9b99-4bc0-a7b9-a9b45d9dd4f6.jpg\" alt=\"Match stats\" title=\"Match stats\" itemprop=\"image\"\/>Match statsFlashscore<\/p>\n<p>A huge downpour paused, but had no impact on, Ruud&#8217;s march to his first final since winning in Stockholm in October last year.<\/p>\n<p>When play was stopped, Ruud was 4-1 up and at advantage in game six of the first set, which he immediately won after the restart on centre court in Rome.<\/p>\n<p>Not including the rain interruption Ruud took little more than an hour to see off Darderi to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flashscore.com\/match\/tennis\/darderi-l-jeXTxMIp\/ruud-c-zN9UpRqp\/?mid=WOHH2E53\" data-analytics-element=\"ARTICLE_TEXT_LINK\" data-analytics-alias=\"internal\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">win a tour-leading 140th match on clay<\/a> since the start of 2020, in which time he has won more tournaments on the surface than any other ATP player.<\/p>\n<p>He enters the weekend not knowing who he&#8217;ll face in the final, with further rain delays causing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flashscore.com\/match\/tennis\/medvedev-d-O8qG0Nhb\/sinner-j-6HdC3z4H\/?mid=6XMkYEio\" data-analytics-element=\"ARTICLE_TEXT_LINK\" data-analytics-alias=\"internal\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jannik Sinner and Daniil Medvedev&#8217;s clash<\/a> to be suspended and taken into Saturday with the Italian a break up in the deciding set.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Casper Ruud reached the final of the Italian Open on Friday after dismantling Italy&#8217;s Luciano Darderi 6-1, 6-1&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-672900","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\/672900","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=672900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}