ROLAND GARROS

May 26, 2024

Casper Ruud

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Casper, big congrats. Can you tell us how you're feeling coming into Roland Garros after winning a title?

CASPER RUUD: Thank you. Obviously well. I got here this morning, so just first day back at the beautiful site here. Looking forward for my match. That's the main priority what you are thinking about.

I'm going to have a day off today. It was a bit of a long day yesterday with two matches, but at the same time it's good preparation I think. I got to play five sets yesterday, which you might have to do here as well.

So happy with another title and trying to build some momentum coming into Paris was the goal in Geneva, and I think it worked quite well.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. You played Geneva since a few years. What brings you to play a week before a slam?

CASPER RUUD: I think I was also asked this yesterday, and I think that to me when you look at the practical stuff when you come to Paris and all the slams really, if you are there the week before, you have close to 400 or 500 players walking around wanting to practice, and in practice what do they do with each other? You play matches in practice. So for me it's like why don't you just go and play a tournament? It's no problem.

Geneva is like a three-hour train or 40-minute flight from Paris, so it doesn't cost me anything to travel from one day to the other to the place. I get real matches, to put it this way, and experience playing matches leading up to a slam, which is one of the most important weeks of the year.

Yeah, I just find it calm, peaceful, and at a 250 it's a smaller event, and I can focus on all the practice I want to do and also play matches at the same time. I think it's a good choice. That's why I've been doing it.

Q. Last year you came here maybe not with so much form, and you made the final. The year before you had a lot of form, and you made the final. So you can kind of do it both ways. How are you feeling this year? Obviously probably maybe even the best form you've had coming into this tournament and now that it's so open.

CASPER RUUD: Yeah, I feel good. This season has been the best start for sure for me, best kind of five months that I've ever had to begin the year. Then Madrid, Rome was two bit of a disappointment results for me, and that's also a little bit why I decided to go to Geneva.

I wanted to build up some momentum playing matches again. Obviously winning the tournament is a good feeling. It gives you confidence, but it feels like it's anyone's tournament and anyone's game really.

If you look at it's been several different winners on the clay this year, and in the three Masters 1000 alone there's been three different winners. Let's say the top three guys, they haven't won any big tournaments on clay this year, so I'm pretty sure they're hungry to get a big title. I'm pretty sure they're coming in with a lot of motivation and try to do well here.

To me even though Novak hasn't had the best year as he typically has or the same level, I think he is still the favorite. He is the No. 1 seeded, and he is 24 slams under his belt, so if there's anyone who knows when to find their peak and form, it's probably him.

Then after that it's a lot of other guys, and I also want to mention Rafa obviously. He is not seeded and he has not maybe played the way he used to play on clay, but if he is physically fit, I think I'm not going to call him a dark horse, but he is going to be up there also in my eyes as one of the favorites to do well here. His record speaks for itself here.

Q. You had a very good start of the clay season at Monte-Carlo and Barcelona. Then everyone was surprised to see you lose early at Madrid and Rome. What is the confidence level at the moment after this up-and-down clay season, but with a lot of ups anyway?

CASPER RUUD: I think it's good overall. Like I said earlier, a bit of a disappointing result in Madrid and Rome. Madrid, I think Felix just played really good. It was difficult to handle his power there.

Rome I was struggling a bit with my lower back so I was maybe not -- not an excuse, but part of the reason why I maybe wasn't able to find my really, really kind of good game or my groove was that I was struggling a bit with some pain in the lower back.

After that not something you typically do, but I took like five days off to try to fix it and let small inflammation get back to normal, and it worked well and building up some good form in Geneva.

So I think the last week has been great, and I've looked at this as a kind of three-week event in a way, if you will, because Geneva has been one week, and then if you want to do well here, it's two weeks. It's been good so far.

Just try to keep it rolling and the goal is to kind of -- I like to say that when I'm playing well or if I'm gaining confidence playing many matches and winning matches in a row, I kind of build up this wave of confidence and hopefully we can continue on surfing on that wave.

Q. What exactly are you looking for when you go to Geneva for something like that? Is it rhythm? Is it feel? Is it just win some matches and get some confidence and get in a certain mindset? I mean, you're so experienced on clay, and you've done so well before. I'm just sort of curious how your mind couldn't just go back to knowing that.

CASPER RUUD: I think in my case it's kind of like getting into the zone, tournament zone, in a way again. And the fact that I lost first round in Rome left me, like, almost 18 days if I was waiting all the way until starting in Paris, so I think it was a bit too much without one single match in over two weeks.

This is one of the reasons, and yeah, I went to Geneva to be able to practice with good players. I don't have any other top 100, top 150 players to practice with in Norway, so it was either going to Geneva or to Paris a week before to practice.

It's like I said, if you look at what the guys do in practice the week before a slam, they just play practice sets or practice matches with each other. So I figured why not just go to Geneva as I've done before? I like playing there. I get a few maybe at least one extra match and maybe more if I do well, and it worked out pretty good.

I'm coming into the tournament here now with four good matches under my belt and trying to build on it and continue the current -- it's not the biggest winning streak, but four-match winning streak is a good feeling, and try to keep it going here in Paris.

Q. Casper, supposedly this tournament is very open this year. If you had to draw a top three of favorites, would it be you, and would you introduce yourself in this list?

CASPER RUUD: No, I wouldn't put myself in the list just because I don't want to kind of put pressure on myself, but I would put Novak up there definitely. It's not a big if, but, you know, depending on how Carlos, Jannik, and kind of Rafa feels, I feel like those three are also worth mentioning. If they are injury-free, I would consider them, well, four then. I would go with four guys.

It's tough to kind of leave any of those out due to the fact that Rafa has won here 14 times and then Jannik and Carlos have been the sort of best of the younger generation in the past year or two. So I think that's a good list of four.