Jan-Lennard Struff surprisingly reached the quarterfinals at the ATP Masters in Monte Carlo – he defeated the Norwegian top player Casper Ruud.
Struff, currently number 100 in the world rankings, won 6: 1, 7: 6 (8: 6) against Ruud, fourth in the world rankings, on Thursday (April 13th, 2023). Struff had made the leap into the main field through qualification.
After 1:43 hours, the German used his fourth match point. When the score was 5:2 in the second set, Struff had the chance to win the match on his own serve, but missed this opportunity. Ruud turned it up again and fought his way into the tie-break. There Struff kept his nerve and won 8: 6.
He had already fought his way through qualification at the Masters 1000 tournament. In the round of the top eight he meets the winner of the Russian duel between Andrei Rubev and Karen Khachanov.
After good results at Challenger level, the 32-year-old had played his way back into the top 100 in the world by taking part in the second round of the Hard Court Masters in Miami.
Djokovic also in the round of 16
The top seed in the 6.2 million euro clay court tournament is Novak Djokovic (Serbia), who is in the round of 16. Djokovic had missed the tournaments in Miami and Indian Wells due to a lack of corona vaccination, in the USA at that time a vaccination was still a prerequisite for entry. Defending champion Stefanos Tsitsipas (Greece) is also in the round of 16.