US OPEN

September 6, 2022

Casper Ruud

Press Conference

C. RUUD/M. Berrettini

6-1, 6-4, 7-6

THE MODERATOR: Three sets, a crisp two hours and 36 minutes, and you move on. Assess your performance.

CASPER RUUD: Thank you. Yeah, the first two sets went much better than I was expecting, if I can put it this way. Everything sort of went my favor. I was hitting all the spots, all the shots that I needed to. Matteo was maybe not showing the level he typically does.

But I think the conditions were a little bit in my favor with the humidity and the roof closed. It made the ball or the court feel a little slower. I felt like I had more time than usual when I play against him. It was a little bit of advantage for me.

Then third set I was also a little bit fortunate to save some set points and come back and win it on the tiebreak, but very happy to win in three straight sets. I'll have two days off before Friday's semifinal.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. You talked about making it a priority to perform better at the Grand Slams before the season, and you have done that. My question is, are there any secrets or discoveries you have made along the way to help you get the most out of yourself?

CASPER RUUD: Yeah, I think at the start of the year I was a bit unfortunate, because when we were in Australia I rolled my ankle the day before the tournament in practice so I couldn't compete obviously in Australia, which was tough, because it's such a long trip. You spend, you know, over 40 hours back and forth on the plane.

To not play a match in Melbourne was a little bit obviously disappointing, but I knew that when Paris came along I was starting to feel better on the clay, especially, and finding my form and was trying to think, you know, there are three Grand Slams left of the year, and let's try to take the chances I may get.

During Paris, something clicked, and I feel like I, this year, have sort of figured out in the better way how to play five sets and knowing that it's very different from playing best-of-three sets, and it often becomes much longer matches and a lot of back and forth.

Also sometimes realizing or knowing that you can sort of let one set go every once in a while to save some energy for the rest of the sets. So I think, yeah, I matured and learned how to play five sets better than I did last year.

Q. You are someone who seems to be aware of the perceptions of yourself. Are you surprised with what you may be learning about yourself on the tennis court? Is the hard work turning you into a different player than what you expected?

CASPER RUUD: Yeah, I'm honestly a bit surprised that I made it to the semis here, but I think I have developed my hard court game a lot the last year or two, and I think Miami this year showed me and I proved to myself that I can, you know, beat good players and reach later stages in big hard court tournaments.

That has been a sort of confidence booster for myself. But I think obviously when I grew up in Norway I played six months of the year in clay and six months of the year indoor hard court because of the weather, so it's not like I don't enjoy playing on the hard court at all or that I don't know how to do it, because I did it quite a lot when I was younger. And just the fact that maybe I prioritized or feel a little bit more comfortable on clay myself at this time of my career or during my career doesn't mean I don't like to play on hard court or that I cannot have good results here.

I think if you look at this tournament, US Open, and a couple of players who have been known as clay court players, let's say Rafa and Thiem, they have both won here, and Rafa has won it four times. When you look at the Champions Wall in the locker room here, you see there are many different players who have won this tournament. This is a Grand Slam the last 18 or 19 years that had more winners than the rest of them, because I'm not sure why, but there is something special I guess with this place. This year I'm pretty sure there will be new first-time winner here this year also.

It shows that it's possible to do it here in New York. It's sort of a city of dreams, I guess, and I guess that's helping me with my game and my motivation.

Q. I'd like to ask two questions about your father. First, is it ever difficult to sort of navigate father/coach and that whole relationship?

CASPER RUUD: For us, it hasn't been, honestly, and my father was fairly young when I was born. He was 26, I believe. I think he just, from when I was born, I'm not sure if he had a plan with me to be a tennis player or whatever, but he, my father, enjoyed doing different sports that contains a ball. Tennis, golf, soccer, whatever it is, sort of what we call ball sports. It's something that my father enjoyed and he enjoyed taking me to those places where I could do that, either tennis or soccer or golf.

He enjoyed taking me, you know, playing around with me, and I think from the very early age, I enjoyed it too and had that sort of competitive mindset that I wanted to be as good as I could be.

I think my father also saw that since I was young and has helped me and pushed me from a young age already, and I think I said the other day that even though I'm still pretty young and new in the circuit, I feel like I have been living a professional life already for, you know, 12, 13 years. Because I was pretty young when I told my father I wanted to be a professional tennis player, and since then we have put in a lot of hours, a lot of work and effort. So happy that it's going well and that we are still a good team.

Q. With coaching allowed here, how much of an advantage is that? How much help can you get or have you found yourself getting from him during this tournament? And like many kids with many parents and many different areas of life, do you ever think or say, Come on, Dad, leave me alone?

CASPER RUUD: No, not yet honestly (smiling). Sometimes we disagree on stuff, but the coaching rule is a little, what should I say, there are some gray areas in it, because it's not too easy to know exactly what is allowed or not. Because when it was first introduced, I remember I lost the second set I think in the semis of Montreal against Hubert, and he went out in the bathroom to do a change of his clothes, so I had some spare time on the bench.

I went over to my box and asked them a little bit, and my father, What do you think I should do or change in this set? And then the umpire actually came down and told me, You're not allowed to communicate that much. You're supposed to keep it around three to four seconds, and the player is not supposed to talk too much back to your team. It's more like getting messages from the team.

The coaching rule is still new, and we don't know exactly how it works, but it's been helpful for sure. And mostly for the coaches to feel like they can actually tell you something without being warned or for coaching, I think that's very helpful.

Yeah, like I said, there aren't that much of a dialogue, because in the end of the day, we only have 25 seconds between the points, and 20 of them if you have to get your towel goes to wiping sweat or getting new balls or getting ready for your routine and for the next point, so there aren't that much you can talk about, but it's helpful for sure.

Q. Your father was just in here before, and he said that he worked with you very closely until you were 16 and there was about a two-and-a-half year gap, and then you are back with him and that it was you who said, I want you to coach me. What was it that made you want to work with your father again at 18 after you had heard other voices for a couple of years?

CASPER RUUD: Yeah, even though for those two, three years when I had a different coach or help from another coach, he was still sort of the head of the team, in a way. He was still doing all the planning for us, and he was still in contact with my other coach almost every day during practice weeks and he would come to some tournaments but not to many.

Yeah, when I had to stop with my former coach Pedro, I think I was around 19 at the time or was about to turn 19, you know, we looked at some options, but I said that, you know, I'm more comfortable with you being around and having him around, because I know that a coach will do so much for you and help you be very helpful, but when it's the father as well, you feel like you are taken extra care of, because a father will care maybe those extra percentages because he's your family.

So I felt very well taken care of with my father around, and I saw that he was doing everything in his power for me to play well, and I felt comfortable with it.

So we agreed that he would do most of the travel, but at the same time, I needed, you know, still a place to sort of go to and still develop my game and learn from other players and practice with other players than Norwegians.

So we agreed I would go to Mallorca to Rafa's academy and get help from them. I'm still under their wings, and they have been very helpful. It's been a good year since we made that decision and hope we can go for many more years.

Q. If it is Nick Kyrgios in the semifinals, we will obviously talk about the chair-throwing incidents, the comments made on social media. How do you talk about your relationship with Nick, and how do you assess him as a player and as a man?

CASPER RUUD: Well, I mean, I think he has, first of all, taken big steps in his tennis this year, because he has proven that obviously he has been a very, very big talent as a teenager already and beaten the big guys already since he was 18, 19 years old, but this year he has proven that he can do it for many matches in a row, weeks in a row, week in and week out to be there and play very well.

That's exciting to see. It seems that he's really gone in for it this year and giving it a real shot, because he was close to being top 10 some years back, and then I'm not sure what happened after, but he sort of fell down a little bit in the rankings and has been a little bit up and down.

But now he's back to I think where his game belongs and where he belongs in the ranking. It's unfortunate he didn't get points for Wimbledon, because otherwise he would be top 15 again and probably close to top 10 with his result here. We all know that he's dangerous.

On the personal note, there are not that much of a relationship. I mean, we didn't say hi in the locker room for some time, but we do now, so it's better. There were a time where it was a bit probably tense after things were said back and forth, but he actually came to me in Laver Cup last year and congratulated me when I won my match, which was nice.

I think it's easier now, and things have been forgotten. Things have been said, but there is no need to dwell on the past. I mean, he's, yeah, exciting player always to watch, and you never know what's gonna come out of his racquet or his mouth, but in the end, at least he came to me and said that he was happy to see me play well. So that was nice.