French Open recap: Bad luck for Casper Ruud at Roland Garros continues

New York Times

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Welcome to the French Open briefing, where The Athletic will explain the stories behind the stories on each day of the tournament.
On day four, one part of the men's draw suffered a blood bath, Danielle Collins asked for the supervisor and a former finalist got unlucky for the second year in a row.
Wednesday was a rough day for the two-time Roland Garros finalist Casper Ruud, who was eliminated in the second round by Nuno Borges as he struggled with a knee injury.
Ruud lost the match 2-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-0 and was in considerable discomfort in the third and fourth sets.
He revealed in his post-match news conference that he has been struggling with knee pain since the start of the clay season in Monte Carlo, Monaco. He had a scan during the Madrid Open, which he ended up winning, but the pain has remained.
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'The scan didn't know show any structural damage, which is a good thing,' Ruud said. 'There's liquid, inflammation in there that needs to settle. As we know, it's a hectic clay season, and I decided to kind of push through it, doing some anti-inflammatory pills and painkillers to try to get rid of it, which has helped to a certain degree but not enough.'
This injury compounds an unlucky run at the French Open for Ruud, a year after a stomach bug derailed his semifinal against Alexander Zverev, which he also lost in four sets after winning the opener at a canter.
With his semifinal points from last year dropping from his total, Ruud will exit the world's top 10 when the rankings update a week on Monday. He said he'd go for more scans before deciding on whether to play the grass-court season, which for him has only included Wimbledon in the last couple of years.
The Norwegian expanded on the injury when discussing the impact of missing events.
'You feel like you lose a lot if you don't show up and play, both economically, point-wise, ranking-wise and opportunity-wise,' he said.
But after pushing himself beyond his limits in his favourite part of the season, Ruud suggested that what he really needs now is proper time off: 'I will have some more time now to let it heal and rest for a long time.'
Charlie Eccleshare
Bernarda Pera spoiled a farewell party in her first match in Paris. Pera, whose family moved to the U.S. from Croatia when she was 16, was drawn against local favorite Caroline Garcia, who announced that this French Open would be her last ahead of the event.
Pera duly knocked the former world No. 4 out in straight sets, before sending her off with good wishes in her victory speech.
'It was such an emotional match,' Pera said.
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'Caroline is one of the nicest people on tour, and I'm honored to get to know you and spend time with you and share the court with you.'
After that relatively straightforward win on the scoreboard, Pera faced up to a very different test in No. 18 seed Donna Vekić in the second round which evolved as it went on. The first set veered back and forth in a series of breaks, Pera eventually securing two in a row to win it 6-2. The second was more settled, with the players exchanging breaks early before Vekić pinched another with Pera down 5-4 to send the match into a decider.
After the slightly otherworldly quality of her match against Garcia, with all the feeling attached to a beloved player's retirement — and the slight awkwardness of being the player to send them out of their home major — this match was another test of resolve of a completely different kind. Pera served for the match at 5-4, but Vekić broke to 15 and took the match into a tiebreak. Pera could have been forgiven for fading from there, but instead she raced through the tiebreak to win it 10-3 and set up a third round against No. 13 seed Elina Svitolina.
James Hansen
Carlos Alcaraz appeared to have a pretty good French Open draw to begin with: a collection of players he generally handles fairly comfortably.
It went from pretty good to pretty excellent Wednesday, as three seeds exited the tournament and a fourth busted his tail across five sets and emerged with what sounded like some serious soreness in his abdomen.
Ruud, a two-time finalist, went out. So did Stefanos Tsitsipas, the 2021 finalist. Then there was Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard and his serve, which can take the racket out of anyone's hand on any given day. He lost, too.
Who's left? The seeds are Ben Shelton, Tommy Paul, Karen Khachanov and AlexeiP opyrin. That's not exactly a lineup of clay court specialists. Paul has been an Italian Open semifinalist twice, but there's an issue with an abdominal muscle.
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Paul dropped the first two sets of his match with Hungary's Marton Fuscovics, then dialed in and tried to simply extend points and games. He saved a match point in the fourth set and went on to win in five in the rowdy confines of Court 14.
All good, except he said after the match he's been dealing with some deep soreness on the right side of his abdomen for some time.
'At like two-all in the fifth, it started … I don't even know if it was like one shot or something, but it started bugging me worse.
'I knew that there wasn't any treatment to really fix it. That's why we didn't do a medical timeout. I just wanted to hear basically him be like, 'Oh, you should be fine to keep going.'
'He didn't tell me that.'
Paul said he plans to get a scan Thursday to know what he's dealing with. But he's pretty sure of one thing.
'I'm going back out to play,' he said.
Matt Futterman
Tell us what you noticed on the fourth day…
(Top photo of Casper Ruud: Tim Clayton / Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic)