Casper Ruud hoped his short training stint at Rafa Nadal\u2019s academy \u2060in Mallorca would reignite his season as the 27-year-old returns from an injury to defend \u200chis Madrid Open title this week.<\/p>\n
Ruud<\/a>, who lifted his maiden Masters \u200c1000 title in the Spanish capital last \u200cyear, sustained a leg injury and was forced to \u200cretire from his third-round match at the Monte \u200cCarlo Masters against Felix Auger-Aliassime<\/a> earlier this month.<\/p>\n The Norwegian then ramped up his comeback under the close watch of \u200c22-times Grand Slam champion Nadal<\/a>.<\/p>\n “I’m happy \u2060to say I’m fully \u200crecovered,\u201d Ruud said in Madrid.<\/p>\n “I was a bit worried \u200bat first, I thought Madrid would be tough. But I’ve had good days of recovery. \u200bI spent a week in Mallorca, training at Rafa’s academy and working on fitness off the \u2060court. I’m really \u200bpleased to be here, ready to compete again.”<\/p>\n Ruud said he was inspired by the now-retired Nadal\u2019s determination during a glittering playing career that came to an \u200cend in 2024.<\/p>\n \u201cIf there’s one thing you can learn from him, it’s determination,\u201d Ruud added.<\/p>\n \u201cHe never gave up, and he was able to win many matches without being at his best because he was so well prepared physically and mentally.<\/p>\n “There are so many things you can learn from Rafa. This time, we didn’t spend much time together on \u200ccourt. He encouraged me to keep going and told \u200bme I have plenty to fight for \u200cin the coming weeks.”<\/p>\n Ruud begins his Madrid campaign against Jaume Munar<\/a> or Alexander Shevchenko<\/a> in the second round<\/a>.<\/p>\n The twice French Open runner-up is eyeing a strong run in the weeks leading up \u2060to Roland Garros, \u2060which begins on May \u200c24.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Casper Ruud hoped his short training stint at Rafa Nadal\u2019s academy \u2060in Mallorca would reignite his season as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-547609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}