Ruud credits Wozniacki for putting Scandinavian sport on the map: "She sort of started the whole thing"

Casper Ruud is in the semi-final of Roland Garros with a chance to book his 3rd grand slam final after a really great win over fellow Scandinavian Holger Rune.

Scandinavian tennis has a long history with legendary players like Borg and Wilander though lately, it hasn't been that good. Norway in particular never had a top player with Christian Ruud being their best player in history. He's already been eclipsed by his son Casper Ruud who will certainly go down as one of the best players from that part of the world.

He's not the only one as we've seen a lot of good players coming up from Scandinavia, players like Rune and others. To Ruud, it's something that was inspired by Caroline Wozniacki who finally put Scandinavia back on the tennis map after several years:

"Obviously with Caroline Wozniacki being World No. 1 and winning Grand Slam. She sort of started the whole thing I guess."

The match against Rune promised to be a complicated one but it ended up being anything but that as Ruud cruised in straight sets. He's relieved about it:

“I’m very, very relieved. I came into this match just trying to play without pressure. But it’s not easy, obviously. You’re playing a big match and against Holger it’s never easy. He plays very aggressive. Luckily for me the first two sets he wasn’t probably feeling it too well, he was doing a lot of errors, so I sort of got a lot of points for free. So that helped the nerves, but he fought back. Third set he came out playing better and then in the fourth set I was just lucky to get that one break and then keep it all the way out.”

To get into the final he'll have to beat Alexander Zverev.