Casper Ruud battles past Holger Rune to reach milestone 20th ATP final of career in Acapulco

Casper Ruud has battled into the milestone 20th ATP final of his career, defeating Holger Rune in a thrilling all-Scandinavian semifinal clash in Acapulco on Friday night, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.

The former No. 2 is now through to the first ATP 500 final of his career, and it completes a pretty nifty career set—he’s now reached at least one final at every single level of tour-level event (ATP 250, ATP 500, ATP Masters 1000, ATP Finals and Grand Slam).

CASPER RUUD’S 20 ATP FINALS, BROKEN DOWN BY LEVEL:

• 3 Grand Slam finals [2022 Roland Garros, 2022 US Open, 2023 Roland Garros]
• 1 ATP Finals final [2022]
• 1 ATP Masters 1000 final [2022 Miami]
• 1 ATP 500 final [2024 Acapulco]
• 14 ATP 250 finals [2019 Houston, 2020 Buenos Aires, 2020 Santiago, 2021 Geneva, 2021 Bastad, 2021 Gstaad, 2021 Kitzbuehel, 2021 San Diego, 2022 Buenos Aires, 2022 Geneva, 2022 Gstaad, 2023 Estoril, 2023 Bastad, 2024 Los Cabos]

The former No. 2 is now a win away from the biggest title of his career, all 10 of his career ATP titles coming at the ATP 250 level.

Ruud came into Friday night’s match against Rune with a 5-1 lead in their head-to-head, but this was their first career meeting on hard courts—and throughout the match it looked like Rune would have the upper hand this time, not only taking the first set, but also bringing up three break points at 1-all in the second set.

And even after dropping that second set, Rune had leads in the third—he broke to go up 3-1, and after getting broken right back, he broke again to lead 4-2, even going up 40-15 in that game.

But Ruud just kept clawing back, eventually winning the last four games of the match to close it out after two hours and 23 minutes.

“Kind of like a coackroach, you know, not going anywhere, just creeping back in,” Ruud said in his on-court interview.

Ruud’s victory over the No. 7-ranked Rune was the 11th Top 10 win of his career, and his seventh such win on hard courts.

Standing between Ruud and the biggest title of his career on Saturday night will be another Top 10 player, No. 9-ranked Alex de Minaur, who advanced to the final earlier on Friday after unseeded British lefty Jack Draper had to retire down 4-0 in the third set of their semifinal match after struggling with a stomach ailment.

De Minaur beat Ruud in their only previous tour-level meeting at the 2019 NextGen ATP Finals, 4-1, 4-0, 4-2, though Ruud won their only previous meeting below tour-level at a Challenger on clay in 2018.

While Ruud will be going for his biggest title, De Minaur will be trying to tie his biggest title—he lifted his first ATP 500 trophy here last year.