Casper Ruud survives 4-hour battle against Tommy Paul

Casper Ruud is in the next round of the US Open but it took him a long time to get there as Tommy Paul would not give up 7-6(3) 6-7(5) 7-6(2) 5-7 6-0.

Ruud was quite lucky to escape in this one as he was on the verge of being in a lot of trouble midway through the match. But let's start at the beginning. Ruud opened well taking a 3-0 lead against a shaky Paul who never quite found his precision in this match.

He opted to be the more aggressive player in everything including serve and it did not pay off that well. Despite battling back from a break down he had a lot more errors and six double faults in a set that went 7-3 to Ruud in a tiebreak. Had he been a bit more patient he might have gotten it but that's not how Paul plays. In the 2nd set, Paul had a break advantage but he lost it later on with another tiebreak coming.

This time around he got it 7-5 thanks to much better serving and more winners than errors. That's his game, a better serve gives him a better chance of hitting a winner. He upped his aggressiveness even more in the 3rd set and it was paying off at times but not very much in the long run. He took a break but gave it right back eventually taking another one.

Up 6-5 Paul wasted 40-0 on his serve to lose the game and set in the tiebreak. Even so he stayed resilient to take the 4th set 7-5 outplaying Ruud down the stretch with some superb ball striking. The clock showed four hours heading into the decider but it was very anti climactic. Ruud cruised 6-0 as Paul simply ran out of steam.