Andrey Rublev Wins His Second Title Of The Season At The Nordea Open

The clash of the two top seeds at the Nordea Open final was the ninth ATP Finals between two top 10 players and the first at an ATP250 event this season. 

Second seed Andrey Rublev triumphs over the top seed Casper Ruud as he claims a straight sets victory 7(7)-6(3), 6-0 on the clay in Bastad. Rublev now leads Ruud 5-2 on their ATP Head2Head meetings and is only the second player besides Rafael Nadal to have bagelled Casper Ruud on clay since 2020.

Rublev and Ruud put out a high-quality first-set match with Ruud fighting from 2-4 down to level things out and push for a tie-break in the first. The second set was less than ideal for the Norwegian as Rublev blitzed past him with incredible forehand winners to claim the second set. Rublev was ruthless and defeated the nine-time clay court champion six games to love. 

Andrey Rublev has had a pretty good season as he claims his second title of the season. This title marks his 14th tour-level title and 5th title on clay. He has a W-L record of 39-14 this season and will be moving up to no.4 on the rankings of ATP Live Race to Turin. He will be looking to maintain his ranking to get qualified for the Nitto ATP Finals for a fourth time at the end of this season. 

Rublev now ranks no. 7 on the ATP Pepperstone rankings and will be looking to rise to no. 4 to get seeded no. 4 at the US Open. The players currently ranked 4th-10th will be fighting to get seeded No.4 at the US Open to avoid ending up in the same quarter as the top 2 seeds Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic. Naturally, being seeded No. 4 means that the quarter of the draw would be somewhat easier and it would increase their chances of making a deep run at the last Slam of the season.