Ruthless Casper Ruud bags his second title in Geneva

Ruud beats Denis Shapovalov in straight sets to win the Geneva Open final, while John Peers and Michael Venus capture the doubles title.

Casper Ruud with his trophy; Credit: Twitter
By Karthik Raman | May 22, 2021 | 2 Min Read follow icon Follow Us

Third seed Casper Ruud produced a solid performance to beat Denis Shapovalov in the Gonet Geneva Open final. The 7-6, 6-4 victory helped him clinch his second ATP Tour title. The Norwegian has been in impressive form throughout the clay season, reaching three consecutive semifinals at Monte-Carlo, Munich and Madrid. Ruud had only dropped one set on the way to the championship match against Shapovalov in Geneva.

The first set was a tightly contested affair that was defined by strong serving by both the players. With nothing to separate the match went into a tiebreaker. Ruud capitalised on an error to take a 4/2 lead and it soon became 6/2. However, the Canadian fought back to save four set points. But Ruud quickly fired an ace before Shapovalov hit a volley into the net to hand over the set to the Norwegian.

Ruud started the final set on a positive note and quickly started to apply pressure on his opponent. In the marathon 2-2 game, Shapovalov saved four break points. But the Norwegian converted his fifth and never looked back before serving out the victory after an hour and 43 minutes.

Peers-Venus win doubles title

John Peers and Michael Venus captured the Geneva Open doubles title beating Simone Bolelli and Maximo Gonzalez 6-2, 7-5 in 76 minutes. They also reached last week’s Internazionali BNL d’Italia semifinals.

“It was definitely a tough week,” Peers told ATPTour.com. “We tried three times to get on court for our first match [against Marcelo Arevalo and Matwe Middelkoop] and the ground staff did an incredible job to get the courts ready. It was a nice, sunny day for the final and it was good fun.”

Whereas, Venus said, “I didn’t know we had a 4-0 record in finals! It shows that when we’re confident and playing well good things happen. Hopefully we can use this confidence going forward.”

Peers and Venus had won three trophies in 2020 – the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, the Hamburg European Open and the European Open in Antwerp.

Elsewhere, top-seeded Frenchmen Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut advanced to the Lyon Open final with a 7-5, 7-6 victory over Marcelo Demoliner and Santiago Gonzalez on Saturday. They will next face fourth seeds Hugo Nys of Monaco and German Tim Puetz.