Casper RUUD battles past Holger RUNE to set up Mexican Open Acapulco final with Alex DE MINAUR

Casper Ruud is into his 20th ATP Final of his career after defeating Holger Rune in an all-Scandinavian battle in Acapulco on Friday night 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. But it is a first ATP 500 final of his career surprisingly given the level he has reached before with three Grand Slam finals, 1 ATP Finals Final, an ATP Masters final and of course various ATP 250 finals and wins.

Ruud led the head to head against Rune 5-1 coming into the match, but it was their first ever meeting on a hard court. Rune started superb though not only taking the first set but having break point at 1-1 in the second set.

Rune had leads in the third even after that though going 3-1 up and 4-2 up including nearly going one away from there. He won the last four games of the match and sealed the win after two hours and 23 minutes.

But Ruud kept fighting and like he said post match, he was like an insect. “Kind of like a cockroach, you know, not going anywhere, just creeping back in,” Ruud said in his on-court interview.

Next up is Alex de Minaur who advanced to the final after Jack Draper again had to deal with issues albeit not injury, but instead a stomach ailment. De Minaur beat Ruud in their only previous tour level match, but that was back in 2019. So both have become vastly better players since that point.