Norway’s Casper Ruud Reaches U.S. Open Final, Can Earn World No. 1 Ranking

Sometimes one point can change the tone of an entire tennis match.

That looked to be the case when Casper Ruud and Karen Khachanov engaged in a 55-ball rally that kept the Arthur Ashe Stadium fans on the edge of their seats across 1 minute, 19 seconds and ended with Khachanov hitting a forehand into the net on set point in the first set of their U.S. Open semifinal.

Smacking inside-out forehands for nearly three hours, Ruud, the No. 5 seed from Norway, went on to win the match over the Russian, 7-6(5), 6-2, 5-7, 6-2, to advance to his second Grand Slam final. He lost the French Open final to Rafael Nadal in straight sets earlier this year. Khachanov fell to 0-19 against Top-10 players.

“After Roland Garros, I was of course extremely happy but at the same time humble enough to think that that could be my only final in a Grand Slam in my career,” he said on court. “Those don’t come easy so here I am back again a couples months later, so it feels beyond words to describe.”

In Sunday’s final, Ruud will face the winner of the second semifinal between No. 3 Carlos Alcaraz and No. 22 Frances Tiafoe.

If Tiafoe wins the semifinal, Ruud will ascend to the world No. 1 ranking. If Alcaraz wins, he and Ruud will play for the No. 1 ranking — and the title — in the final.

Ruud is seeking to become the third straight man to win his first major at the U.S. Open following Dominic Thiem (2020) and Daniil Medvedev (2021). Other than those two, Nadal and Novak Djokovic have won 15 of the last 17 majors.

The 55-ball rally is among the longest ever recorded. Bjorn Borg and Guillermo Vilas had an 86 ball-rally in the 1978 French Open final, according to ESPN. The point, and the title, were won by Borg, one of three Scandinavians — along with fellow Swedes Mats Wilander and Stefan Edberg — to hold world No. 1 ranking. Ruud would be the fourth and the first from Norway.

The way the first set ended surely took an emotional toll on Khachanov, who took out Nick Kyrgios in a rugged five-set quarterfinal to reach his first-ever Slam semi. He entered the semifinal with 88 aces, the most among the semifinalists, and banged out 16 more against Ruud, who himself crushed 10 aces.

But Ruud broke him six times, including once early in the second set. The second set ended when Khachanov sailed a forehand long during another rally.

Ruud won 30 of the 41 points in the second set and won all 16 on his serve.

Despite the letdown by Khachanov, Ruud let his concentration slip at the end of the third set and Khachanov broke him in the 12th game when Ruud hit a short forehand into the net.

Ruud then broke the Russian in the third and fifth games of the fourth to go up 4-1. He closed it out at love on his serve, hitting a nifty forehand drop shot on match point, with the crowd soon shouting “Ruud.”

While some have pegged Ruud as a clay court player because of his success on that surface, he says it’s not true and that he can play — and win — on any surface.

“I think if you look at this tournament, U.S. Open, and a couple of players who have been known as clay court players, let’s say Rafa and Thiem, they have both won here, and Rafa has won it four times,” Ruud said.

“When you look at the Champions Wall in the locker room here, you see there are many different players who have won this tournament. This is a Grand Slam the last 18 or 19 years that had more winners than the rest of them, because I’m not sure why, but there is something special I guess with this place. This year I’m pretty sure there will be new first-time winner here this year also.

“It shows that it’s possible to do it here in New York. It’s sort of a city of dreams, I guess, and I guess that’s helping me with my game and my motivation.”

Ruud is coached by his father Christian Ruud, who reached as high as No. 39 in the world. Christian agreed that his son isn’t just a dirt-baller.

“I think basically in Norway you play a lot on clay in the summer, and his game style suits maybe clay better,” he said. “So in the beginning it was more like trying to get up in the rankings, and then you want to play the challengers on clay and he kind of played too much on clay because he wanted to reach that goal and be in the top 100 and play the bigger tournaments.

“So it was never like he cannot play on hard court, because we play on hard court during the winter. The more you play on hard court, the more confident you get. Especially playing the big tournaments against the good players, you need to build the confidence a little bit. So I think it’s just about the confidence.

“Even though his game style suits clay a little bit better, the service improved and the forehand is also working well on the hard courts….He can play great matches on hard court.”

With one more hard court win, he will be the U.S. Open champion.