MUTUA MADRID OPEN

May 4, 2025

Casper Ruud

Press Conference

C. RUUD/J. Draper

7-5, 3-6, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: Casper, this is your biggest title of your career. It's not been long since you finished, but how are you feeling after such an achievement?

CASPER RUUD: Amazing, of course. It is a mix of somewhat of a relief and happiness and just pure joy. I know, based on the last years that I've had on tour, how tough it is to do well at the biggest tournaments, and I've never been able to get over the finish line as a champion, but today I was able to and this week here in Madrid, so extremely happy and proud, of course, that I was able to stay focused in the tournament throughout the whole match.

After losing the second set and kind of the momentum switched, I bounced back and played, particularly very happy with the last game that I played and proud that I finished it off in that way.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. You couldn't repeat in Barcelona, that it's only a 500, but great title. But now Madrid, you are uniting the two cities.

CASPER RUUD: Yeah, of course Barcelona didn't go as well as I hoped, but I lost to Holger there who won the tournament. He was playing amazing. So it was okay. I didn't, I wasn't too hard on myself after that loss. I just realized that I wasn't good enough that day, and I came here practicing and got some days of practice before starting, so that was good, I guess.

From the first match really I felt the ball great, and the courts here, and I've been able to beat a lot of good players on the way and topped it off with maybe one of the best matches for me of the year today. I'm super happy to kind of bounce back a little bit and get my season turning around to something very positive, so hopefully, I can keep going from here.

Q. All of your career you seem to handle tough losses and big losses, like, quite well in a way, like, without any drama or anything. I'm curious just actually how tough has it been to come so close to winning big titles in the past but not get over the line, and obviously now that you have done that, how satisfying is it?

CASPER RUUD: Yeah, I mean, I've been in, I guess, like six, this was my seventh big final, yeah, if you count them all. So seven is, like, a lucky number, I guess (laughing). So it was worth the wait in the end. I've never really been too close in any of the finals when I look back. I've lost the majority of them in straight sets.

But when I lost the second set today, I was kind of a bit frustrated. Jack really stepped up in the end of serve in that second set. I felt like I was in a good position, it was 7-5, 3-2, and then suddenly, boom, 3-6. But I told myself try to stay positive. If you had been offered at the beginning of the week that you would play the third set for the trophy, you would probably take it. You never know what can happen in the third set, there's only one set, and luckily, I was able to keep the break all the way.

This tastes, of course, very good, and I think it's something that you need to be able to handle and move on from tough losses if you want to improve, and you want to become a better player in any sport, you need to be able to kind of erase memory fast. Some losses have been harder than others to do, but all losses that I've had the six previous times have been a contributing motivation to get it done today.

Q. You said as an introduction that you feel relieved. Did you feel like under pressure over the past years to go and go and go in finals without winning?

CASPER RUUD: Well, I mean, even though I won today, my record in big finals is still not good, it's 1-6. I've been in many unbelievable and incredible positions in my career, and I've been able to experience some great things and, unfortunately, have been on the losing spectrum of many of those matches, but that's okay. In many ways, my career has gone better than maybe I thought was possible sometimes.

Of course I always dreamed about winning tournaments like this or Grand Slams or becoming world No. 1, and I've been fairly close, but it's not like I was serving for the match anytime or super leading, like, crazy and then choked and lost in a way. So I've just played that were better than me, and I've tried to learn from that, and I think that one day there will come another opportunity and maybe I can seize it and, I guess, that was the key to the victory today.

I mean, Jack is an incredible player, and he will only get better and better, and I knew that based on the previous six losses that if I don't bring my A game, I have nothing to do there on court, so that was the mentality.

Q. Just on Jack, just curious, you know, what makes him such a tough opponent?

CASPER RUUD: I think that he has very little or few holes, if any, in his game. Look, he's a quite tall guy. He's big, strong, and then he also moves great. He's able to defend really well and also play aggressive. He moves, like I said, great to be a fairly tall guy. And of course he has that lefty, tricky serve and also everything kind of gets opposite when you're playing a lefty.

But I was super impressed in particularly the first and second, or even the whole match, with how he handled my heavy forehand down to his backhand, which is something that I feel like it's my weapon and my way of kind of damaging my opponent's game. It's probably my favorite shot, ripping a heavy forehand cross, and he's just there, like, stepping in and countering, like, even faster sometimes and changing directions. So that's something I was really impressed with. That's not easy to do on clay because you will have some wrong bounces and such, but he managed to do that almost all match really well.

He only hit a few errors that came at a crucial time for him. But, yeah, you're scared of his forehand because he rips it cross, rips it down the line. You're also, in a way, scared of his backhand because he can rip and counter from that side as well. So there aren't much holes in his game that I see or that I feel, especially here on clay, which is maybe his, I don't know, but maybe his least favorite surface so far of his career. But he's definitely got an incredible future on any surface now with the level he's shown here in Madrid.

Q. A few days ago you said it would be ironic if you win here. Do you still think it's ironic, and are you going to work again with the mental coach who helped you recently?

CASPER RUUD: I still kind of feel like it's a bit ironic, yeah, because if you look at my year this year, there's been one really good tournament, which was Dallas, where I reached a final, and other than that, it's been earlier losses than I hoped, more losses than I hoped.

But it's a long season, and I have tried to think about that. It's like a marathon, not a sprint, kind of that saying. The clay season is, I love it, but it's not that long.

So, I mean, I lost earlier than I wanted in Monte-Carlo and Barcelona, and the kind of tournaments, the weeks, they go on, and if you don't do well, you kind of feel like, Oh, I need to do well now.

So here in Madrid, I really stepped up, which is a good feeling, but if you look at my last year, it would be less surprising if I was able to win the big title last year because of the other results I had. But since Roland Garros last year, I've had quite many months of struggling and not many good results, so it's worth the wait. I think I've accepted that I've had to, or I took one or two steps back in my game and my feelings on court in order to take two or three steps forward again. Here in Madrid it feels like I've taken four steps forward, so that's a great feeling.

Q. I assume that you've been so focused on tennis in these last two weeks, but I don't know if you have enough time to visit some places in Madrid. I know that you are a football fan, a Liverpool fan, if I'm not mistaken, so I don't know if you visit, for example, Santiago Bernabéu or any other football stadium?

CASPER RUUD: No, I wasn't able to this year. I wanted to, but there were no tickets, unfortunately, when I looked at it. It was two weeks ago. I think they played Athletic Bilbao two weeks ago at home. But I was watching, obviously, when they played Barcelona in Sevilla, the Cup final. Today, they played again, so I was not able to watch anything there.

But I've been there before and the stadium is incredible and it's always fun here in Madrid. You see some of the football players. They come to watch. Today, I think I saw Ronaldo was there watching, so I know he likes tennis. It's a really cool city. I mean, it doesn't have, like, a shoreline or water, but it's a beautiful city, and I went, one of the first days I was able to go to Laureus Awards, which was also incredible. So I've had a great time in Madrid, and I will, when I leave tomorrow, I will look forward again to coming back next year.

Q. On court, you said that you came here 15 years ago as a young fan to watch tennis. I don't know if you have any remembrance of that visit or what match did you see or anything about that?

CASPER RUUD: Yeah, I remember. My grandmother, she gave me, like, a trip anywhere I wanted in Europe when I was 10. When I turned 10, that was, like, my birthday gift from my grandmother, and I said I wanted to go and watch tennis, and Madrid was a good option. I think it was one of the first years Madrid was played here in Caja Mágica. I have another family member who lived in Madrid, so we stayed at her place and just came here for two days and watched tennis.

I remember I got Novak's signature, and I was watching Rafa and Roger and Soderling, who was Swedish, of course, and even, like, Tommy Haas practicing. I loved every minute watching the players play either match or practice.

So it's really fun to come back as a player yourself. I have a picture, I think she has a picture, my grandmother, of me when I was here, and you can see the joy on my face watching tennis. It's an incredibly cool stadium and a dream come true, honestly, to have this trophy here as I've been here since I was 11 years old.

Q. You were here in 2010?

CASPER RUUD: I think it was 2009, maybe. I don't know, first year was 2009 here? Yeah, I think it was here 2009.

Q. The French Open is approaching. Is this title here changing something big for you in terms of confidence or the way you approach a tournament there? You played the final two times there.

CASPER RUUD: I hope so. Honestly, with this win, I put myself back in a good position when it comes to ranking and seeding. So, in a way, if you want to win a tournament, you can say that it doesn't really matter what your ranking is because you have to beat every player you play anyways. But it's a good step forward, and when I come to Paris, I will always have great feeling and memories from the place.

I think that I'm a good clay court player and best-of-five sets I will be even tougher to beat on clay, kind of that's my mentality. I know I don't need to play great every point or every single match, but I know that I can physically be there for a long time and play my clay court game and make it difficult for the opponents. That's kind of how I felt when I've done well there.

So I will enjoy this tonight and prepare as well as I can for Rome in the coming days, and then after Rome I will, I'm entered for Geneva, and then after that, we'll see how it goes in Paris. But there's still some really exciting weeks coming up, and I guess a win here shows the other players also that I'm here to try to do well for the rest of the clay season.

Q. Your support for Iga Swiatek, do you follow female tennis, or is that you are just a gentleman, or is it because it was from your heart?

CASPER RUUD: No, I honestly, I just, I went on-line and I saw this video of her where she was, like, she looked devastated on court. I don't know, I wasn't in her head obviously or knew how she felt, but it felt like she needs some support maybe. So I just tried my best to cheer her up.

I think she's an incredible player, and not only her, I mean, I think the women's tennis is really cool to watch these days. You have Sabalenka dominating. Iga has won already five slams in a young, her young career. Coco is there now No. 3. So those three have been really cool to follow and watch.

The final yesterday I watched a bit of it. So, yeah, I follow a little bit. I think Coco is also really cool to watch. Personally I like both Coco and Iga because I think they play very explosive, they move well to be women, and they can slide. I think this is cool to see that the women have also taken their athletic abilities to the next level.

So, yeah, I like to follow and see how they develop their games. I think Roland Garros this year should be very open for I think both men and women's side.