ROLAND GARROS

May 25, 2026

Casper Ruud

Press Conference

C. RUUD/R. Safiullin

6-2, 7-6, 5-7, 0-6, 6-2

THE MODERATOR: Casper, obviously a crazy match. Can you just describe what you're feeling physically with the conditions today?

CASPER RUUD: Yeah, it was quite the roller coaster of a match with a lot of things going on and back and forth. Obviously some physical struggles from myself and at one point maybe also for Roman, so it was pretty tough.

I mean, as we know, there's a bit of a heat wave at the moment, and that can sometimes cause a bit problems. Yeah, felt like it was a bit of a kind of heat-stroke feeling. I had experienced something similar some years ago when I played in Washington D.C., and I had to retire in the third set because I had that -- that's the only time I had that same feeling as I had today in the fourth set where I felt, you know, at times really dizzy and just really tired and walking around like a zombie almost.

Luckily, I was 2-1 up still and allowed myself to kind of lower the intensity a bit to get my pulse and body temperature down as much as possible in the fourth to see if there was any chance to finish in the fifth and have some extra energy. Luckily, that ended up working.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Next round you'll be playing for the second time on clay against Hamad Medjedovic, a player that you know well from last year in Barcelona, who also has similar issues with the heat. So what can you tell us about this match?

CASPER RUUD: Yeah, I mean, he's a great player. You know, a really, really big talent and has beaten some really tough and good players in the recent years. So we had a tough match in Barcelona some years ago, and I'm sure he will be ready.

I will do my best to recover well and be ready. It will be another tough match. You know, the heat isn't going away anytime soon, so we'll just both try to be prepared as we can.

Obviously a bit of a different situation for me, but I'll hopefully have a good recovery tonight with some good and proper food and good treatment and a good night's sleep. We'll see how I wake up tomorrow feeling. Yeah, I will do everything I can to be ready for a tough match.

Q. Just watching your match and even watching the scoreboard, it really did seem like you hit a wall at some point. I was wondering for you what that felt like and if you always knew that with time you'd be able to sort of regain any capability of coming back in this match, because you were really just kind of off the board for a while there, for all intents and purposes.

CASPER RUUD: No, it started kind of sneaking up on me towards the middle of the third set. I think when I broke him to 3-1, I started feeling a tiny bit of, like, tendency of cramp in my calves, and I was thinking, oh, shoot, here we go.

When cramps start creeping up, you kind of try to consume a bit of energy and see if you can get some quick points and kind of this and that, because you know it can kind of develop and get worse and worse, and it can also move around from calf to thigh and quad, et cetera.

So I kind of managed to sneak a few games from 3-1 and be 5-2, and obviously match points, but at that time I was still feeling quite, like, shaky in the legs. Obviously 5-3, 40-Love up, you think you have it. Then I made five first serves in a row, and he played five good points, and I end up missing a forehand winner on the break point for him. That was the toughest, maybe, service break I've experienced in a while.

But, yeah, then it kind of kept on creeping and creeping. This wall kind of, yeah, hit me towards 5-All, 6-5 in the third. I felt, like I said, really, really bad for a moment there.

I just told myself, you know, I'd rather lose 0-0, but maybe he's also struggling. Then at the point he calls the physio, and at that time I had lost five, six, or maybe eight games in a row and hadn't really moved. When you don't move for 20, 30 minutes, you can consume a bit of energy.

I tried to do as much ice and cold water on myself as possible to lower my temperature. Then, yeah, luckily I kind of kick-started myself in the fifth.

I also thought of Jannik and Carlos this year at Australia when they -- Jannik, in particular, when he was struggling in the heat. Then it cooled off with the roof closing, and he was able to regain energy. A little bit the same with Carlos semifinal with Sascha. He looked pretty dead for a while and then lost fourth and fifth, I believe, and then was -- no, sorry, third and fourth, and then somehow regained and came back in the fifth.

So, you know, there are some things you think out there, and today that worked for me, yeah.

Q. How relieved were you when you looked over? There was this weird moment where you had an ice towel on your head while he's down on the floor getting treatment. How conscious of that were you? Just as a fact check, at the end of the second set, you went off court, were you feeling unwell at that point as well?

CASPER RUUD: No. I mean, obviously, until the sun goes down, it's quite hot. You get affected by the sun. I think in the second set I just needed to change my shoes because I was soaking wet in my shoes. I didn't feel bad at that time.

So it started around 3-1 in the third for me, and then that set and a half that came after was tough physically. But, yeah, I was able to regain some strength both physically and kind of mentally, in a way, when you see that he's also struggling, because up until 5-0 he was just smacking the ball winners left and right, and I couldn't even react to anything.

I was thinking if this is the story for the fifth, I'm in big trouble. But, you know, luckily it wasn't, and I regained some energy. That three-minute break that he had I was able to, you know, just ice and cool down.

Then we get another five-minute break after the fourth with this heat, and that's luckily in the rule book. So I used that to my advantage and was able to cool off in a cold room outside the court and brought ice towels. Then when I came back on the fifth, I said, here we go. Either I lose 6-0 or something can happen.

I'm, of course, very happy that I was able to kind of jump-start almost a dead body.

Q. All in all, would you say it's a mental victory or physical victory because you are the survivor? Did pure tennis had his role in the fifth? How do you balance all that?

CASPER RUUD: Well, I think that he let me play a bit more in the fifth because his serve was kind of dozing off, at least the power. It seemed like his hip was bothering him with the serve, so that kind of gave me a little bit of boost mentally.

Yeah, it feels like a mental win. At times in the fourth I was thinking, you know, I have to book the flight home tomorrow, and I'll be watching from home on the sofa the next two weeks. Luckily, that's not the case.

Physically, also, you know, I'm proud because I never really gave in. I didn't give up. Like I said, I'd rather lose 0-0 and be out there and at least try than to retire, but yeah, it didn't look pretty there in the fourth.

Both physically and mentally it feels kind of as a proud win.