Andrey Rublev beats Casper Ruud in rainy Bastad for second title of season

WATCH: Andrey Rublev won his second title of 2023 with a straight-sets win over Casper Ruud in Bastad.

Does Andrey Rublev have Casper Ruud's number? It certainly seems so.

The Russian got the better of the Norwegian for the fifth time in their overall head-to-head Sunday in a 7-6(3), 6-0 final at the Nordea Open in Bastad, Sweden to capture his second title of the season and 14th of his career.

The title match between top-seeded Ruud and second-seeded Rublev was the ninth ATP singles final between Top 10 players in 2023, but first at an ATP 250 event. In addition, it was the fifth instance of the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds playing for a trophy on the ATP Tour this year.

After beating defending champion Fransisco Cerundolo in a three-set semifinal on Saturday, Rublev said the two would be assured of playing a "crazy" match. But the one hour, 32-minute clash was largely routine, after Rublev got the upper hand by winning an opener that saw stops and starts due to intermittent rain, and lasted an hour on its own.

The conditions, Rublev said, proved the hardest thing to overcome.

"In the beginning of the day, I was thinking that because of the rain, we weren't going to play, so I was not really even motivated to play," Rublev said afterwards. "When they told us we had to play, somehow, I was able to switch on, and I was able to play a really, really great match today."

The No. 2 seed was the first to break serve, and led 4-2, before Ruud won three straight games, and there was little to separate the two until Rublev won six of the first eight points of the tiebreak.

The second set, which was decided in part by lengthy second and fifth games, was the first-ever bagel in 16 sets between the two. Ruud had two game points in his first service game of the second set, and two chances on Rublev's serve to recover one break when he trailed 4-0, but all went unconverted.

Four of Rublev's five career wins against Ruud have now come on the Norwegian's preferred surface, clay.

Ruud was bidding for his 11th title, and second in Bastad, having triumphed in his neighboring Sweden in 2021.