Casper Ruud halts Cerundolo to reach first Masters 1000 final in Miami 

WATCH: Casper Ruud speaks with Tennis Channel Live following his 2022 Miami semifinal win.

Iga Swiatek, Carlos Alcaraz, Francisco Cerundolo, Casper Ruud: The Miami Open has been a happy hunting ground for clay-courters looking to shore up their hard-court games.

This fact may not come as a surprise, considering the traditionally slow surface used here; at the start of the tournament, the courts were even slower than the famously gritty surface at Indian Wells. But in the cases of Swiatek, Alcaraz and Ruud, there’s no reason why they can’t use their powerful baseline games to go deep on any court, whatever its speed. All of them prove again that, in the modern power-baseline era, the difference between clay-court tennis and hard-court tennis is often just a matter of emphasis.

Watching Ruud beat Alexander Zverev in the quarterfinals—“the biggest win of my career,” he called it—and Cerundolo 6-4, 6-1 in the semifinals, you would hardly believe that just one of his previous seven titles came on hard courts (the other six were on clay). He moves comfortably on it, and he rallies with his backhand and creates openings with his forehand the way other hard-courters do.

He says that coming into the tournament, he worked on being a little more aggressive, and that little bit has been enough. With his win over Cerundolo, Ruud is into his first Masters 1000 final on any surface. At 23, with a No. 8 ranking, the result seems, if anything, overdue.

“I’m feeling the ball good here,” Ruud told Tennis Channel after his semifinal, referring to the heavy Miami humidity that has wreaked havoc with other players’ games. “I know some players aren’t feeling the ball good.”

The biggest difference, he says, has been his return. His consistency with it has made him more confident in the rest of his game.

“This week I’ve been returning quite well, making a lot of returns back, and staying a little bit more aggressive than what I’ve been used to,” Ruud said. “It’s something I’ve worked on coming into the tournament.”

Ruud, a native of Norway and son of former player Christian Ruud, has been nibbling around the edges of stardom for a few years now. At this point, he seems to have all the elements in place: An uncluttered game, a first-strike weapon in his forehand, seven years of experience and seven ATP titles. As Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic play less in the coming years, players like Ruud will have more open paths to later rounds at tournaments like these.

Right now, instead of an elite class of stars rising up to take the places of the Big 3, the cast of future ATP contenders keeps growing, and their pecking order shifting. Ruud may not be the most dynamic personality among the bunch, but he has a level head and one of the most reliable, and newly versatile, games. The next step may be getting used to being the favorite in matches and moments like these.

“I thought about it,” Ruud said, when he was asked what it was like to suddenly be the highest-ranked player in a Masters 1000 semifinal. And then he went out and won anyway.