The German showed his great moment of form and accessed the Masters 1000 quarterfinals for the second time
Ruud, who had just won in Estoril, may fall out of the ATP Top 5
The German Jan Lennard Struff he skipped the 96 positions that separate him from the Norwegian Casper Ruud in the ATP rankings and eliminated the fourth player in the world in the round of 16 of the Monte Carlo tennis tournament 6-1 and 7-6 (6).
Coming from the previous phase, Struff had already left clues about his good moment by defeating the Spanish in the first round Albert Ramos and in second to the Australian Alex de Minaur without giving up a set.
He did the same before Ruud, winner in Estoril last week of his first title of the year, but today unable to display his game against the courage of the German.
The Norwegian, a true specialist on clay, a surface that has given him nine of the ten tournaments on his record, lost serve twice in the opening round and another two in the second, although at the end of it he had a splendid reaction that allowed him to save two match balls, recover both services and go from 5-2 to 6-6.
In the tiebreaker he solved a new match point against with a great serve, but the next time he subtracted out and gave the giant from Warstein (1.93 m) the victory.
At 30 years old, she is the second time Struff has reached the quarterfinals of a Masters 1,000 category tournament, after doing so in 2020 in Cincinnati. His next rival will be a Russian: o Andrey Rublev or Karen Kachanovfifth and ninth seeds in the tournament.