WHAT HAPPENED: For Matteo Berrettini, the game plan is, as always, simple: blast as many huge serves and all-or-nothing forehands as possible. While he shows deft touch at the net and with his slice backhand (his two-hander is middling), those were the two ingredients in the sixth-seed’s run to the US Open semifinals last year and his climb into the Top 10 rankings.
The unknown part of the equation in his third-round match-up was what the 21-year-old Norwegian Casper Ruud would do. The 30th seed, who broke into the Top 100 last year and became the first Norwegian to win an ATP title this year, actually beat Berrettini at the French Open last year.
But that, of course, was on red clay, which slows Berrettini’s shots, so the question for Ruud—a stout defender who has beefed up his serve to compete better on faster surfaces—was whether to stay back and try to make Berrettini hit extra balls or to step in and try to aggressively exploit the Italian’s backhand. (Berrettini has lost five straight and 16 of 17 to Top 50 players on hard courts, so it can be done.)
In the first game, Ruud, who already beat John Isner and Fabio Fognini this year, looked unintimidated and won at love, essentially needing only his serve. But in his second service game he felt the wrath of Berrettini’s forehand, which he hits with depth, pace and extreme ferocity. In that game it was definitely more all than nothing, giving him an early break. The favorite would not maintain that consistency for the rest of the set, but he didn’t need to—that break, plus eight aces as he won 89 percent of the points on his first serve (which averaged 127 mph to Ruud’s 110), and he held the rest of the way for a 6-4 first-set win.
In the third set, up 3-2 and at 30-30, Ruud sensed an opportunity and went for a Berrettini-esque forehand, but just missed the winner wide. It was a sound strategy, but he shot he’d regret.
At 4-4 and up 30-15, Ruud made a critical tactical error—he hit a half-dozen straight balls at Berrettini’s backhand, passing up the chance to change directions a couple of times on balls in the middle. When Ruud finally went to Berrettini’s forehand, it was on a ball he ran around, pulling himself off the court and giving Berrettini plenty of room to blast a winner. Berrettini, who, like Ruud, had not had a break point all set, put himself in position with a strong approach and volley two points later, then jumped around some backhands to power enough big forehands to earn the break for a 5-4 lead. Continuing his streak of winning 100 percent of his first serves for the set, he consolidated the break and closed out the set with his 13th ace of the match.
Ruud had shown his mettle when he survived a two-set deficit in the first round, but that was against an unseeded player. In the third set, he finally stepped inside the baseline on second serves and hit more aggressively on his forehands during rallies, earning two break points. But Berrettini played good defense on his backhand and fought his way back to hold. In the next game he whipped his forehand for a breathtaking passing shot, then slammed a deep shot at deuce that gave him the chance to come to net for a volley winner, and on the first break point he crushed another forehand that Ruud sent deep.
Ruud played well for two-and-half sets, keeping it competitive, but ultimately, having a big serve at crunch time proved perhaps the crucial difference—while Berrettini broke serve four times, Ruud was 0-5 in break points, falling 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 in just over two hours.
WHAT IT MEANS: Berrettini, who has the shot of the tournament with his forehand around the net post winner in the second round, clearly has the weapons to make another deep run here. But to do it here, with Daniil Medvedev, who is equally skilled and adaptable, a likely quarterfinal foe, Berrettini may need to go for a little less on his forehands to reduce his errors or to attack the net even more. In the long run, it’ll be improving his backhand that’ll make him more likely to be a Top 5 player.
MATCH POINT: Next up is a rematch of last year’s round of 16, when Berrettini bested another rising star, Andrey Rublev. Berrettini won that and their subsequent hard-court showdown in Vienna in straight sets, but except for the 6-1 starter at the Open, the last sets were extremely close (6-4, 7-6, 7-5, 7-6).
