Casper Ruud struggles with knee injury, loses to Nuno Borges at Roland Garros | ATP Tour

Roland Garros

Injured Ruud falls to Borges at Roland Garros: ‘Hopefully nothing severe’

28-year-old Borges is first Portuguese man to achieve third spherical at clay main

Could 28, 2025

Casper Ruud’s hopes for an additional run on the Roland Garros title after a powerful European clay swing ended with an injury-affected defeat to Nuno Borges on Wednesday afternoon.

The No. 41 within the PIF ATP Rankings Borges downed Ruud 2-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-0 on the clay-court main to turn out to be the primary Portuguese man to achieve the third-round in event historical past. Two-time finalist Ruud made a quick begin on Courtroom Suzanne-Lenglen however from the third set onwards was visibly hampered by a left knee concern, which he obtained therapy for.

Borges with the upset…

He takes out seventh seed Ruud 2-6 6-4 6-1 6-0…@rolandgarros | #rolandgarros pic.twitter.com/Ifx0LY6v6n

— ATP Tour (@atptour) May 28, 2025

In his post-match press convention, Ruud defined that he had been managing ache in his left knee within the run-up to Roland Garros.

“It’s hopefully nothing too serious. For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been kind of struggling a little bit with knee pain on and off,” defined the Norwegian. “That is why I made a decision to drag out of Geneva after Rome, do my finest, and heal to be prepared right here.

“When you’re practising, leading up to the tournament, it’s easier to avoid certain movements that are painful. It’s not painful. Everything is not painful. But certain movements out there are kind of what makes it painful. Certain shots are painful to do. When you’re playing matches, you can’t really control it in the same way. You do everything you can to get to every ball. Sometimes you kind of forget that this is a shot I shouldn’t go for maybe in terms of pain in the knee. That’s pretty much all.”

Ruud mentioned he first felt the ache throughout April’s Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters, and he additionally revealed that he had a scan on the knee throughout his maiden ATP Masters 1000 title run on the Mutua Madrid Open. The 26-year-old, who’s now 25-7 for 2025 in response to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index, was additionally eager to reward the efficiency of Borges after the Portuguese levelled the pair’s Lexus ATP Head2Head sequence at 1-1.

“It’s been okay in practice because, like I said, I’m able to control it a bit more,” said Ruud. “When you play a match, you go full on, no matter what happens. I don’t want to take anything away from Nuno, because I think he played a phenomenal match, a really high level.”

For Borges, his reward for incomes a maiden victory towards a Prime-10 opponent is a third-round assembly with Alexei Popyrin. The Twenty fifth-seeded Australian earlier downed Alejandro Tabilo 7-5, 6-3, 6-4.

“I was fighting a lot, especially that first set, I felt like I was completely drilled,” mentioned Borges of his victory towards Ruud. “He actually performed an enormous depth, and I wasn’t dealing with the state of affairs the perfect. It was an excessive amount of for me. Then I simply saved on making an attempt and seen he began to decelerate a bit of bit, and clearly he wasn’t 100 per cent immediately or I’m certain the outcome wouldn’t have been the identical.

“I’m still proud of how I battled from the beginning until the end and gave myself a shot, and today I got lucky.”