Clearly hampered by a bad left knee, two French open finalist Casperulot dropped 13 of his final 14 games and revealed he had been playing in pain throughout the clay court season, losing 2-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-0 in the second round at Roland Garros on Wednesday.
The seventh Cedrude has reached at least the semi-finals in Paris over the past three years. He finished as runner-up for Rafael Nadal in 2022 and Novak Djokovic in 2023.
Defending champion Carlos Alcaraz overcame a set of blips to defeat Fabian Malossan 6-1, 4-6, 6-1, 6-2.
Over the past few weeks, Rude has been taking anti-inflammatory drugs by killing pain, but he did again on Wednesday. However, Roud said he began to plague him with his first set against Borges, who ranked 41st in his knee and became the first Portuguese to reach the third round of the French Open. After the Australian player relaxes past Alejandro Tabilo in the straight set, Borges faces Alexei Popilin in the third round.
Rude has actually avoided it as the worst shot in his knee is an open-stance backhand where he slides his left foot.
“The certain movements there are painful, and certain shots are painful to do,” said Ruud, who reached the final at the 2023 US Open. “When you’re playing a game, you can’t actually have the same control (actually) and do everything you can to get to every ball.
Rude was visited by a trainer and took some medications during Wednesday’s game, but nothing helped.
“It’s a slam. I love this tournament,” Rood said. “Looking back, I tried my best to continue (and attempt) to avoid painful shots, but in the end there were other moves that started to hurt, so that wasn’t ideal.”
He said the issues began at his first clay event in a pre-French open stretch in Monte Carlo in April, and he said he had undergone a medical check-up in Madrid a few weeks later, where he won the title. Rood was pulled out from the Geneva Open, where he played last week.
Now he’s going to do more tests.
“I took a complete five days off at home. It wasn’t enough to just get rid of the pain,” Rood said. “I wish I could stay here for a long time.”
Alcaraz fell to Marozsan at the Clay Court in Rome two years ago, taking away a moment of vulnerability at the Philip Chatelier Court on Wednesday, but the 22-year-old assured him that he would not end his bid for his fifth Grand Slam title early.
“It was a great game. I started playing well,” Alcaraz said. “In the first set, I was really confident. In the second set, he started playing a lot better and he was really offensive.
Alkaraz will then face Damir Zumur. Damir Zumur shrugged a troublesome fall to outweigh the massive Giovanni Mpetosipalispide 7-6 (4), 6-3, 4-6, 6-4.
Lorenzo Musetti continued his Renaissance on Wednesday as he eased into the third round with a nonsense 6-4, 6-0, 6-4 victory over Colombian lucky loser Daniel Garan.
The main issue for the eighth seeded Musetti was the intermittent rains of Cote Simonne Mathieu as he set up a meeting with Mariano Navone, who defeated America’s Riley Opelca 6-1, 7-6 (1), and 6-3.
“It was a solid performance from start to finish,” Musetti said. “There were some ups and downs in the first and third sets. I’m sure I’ll complain about the level I’m showing.”
He reached the finals at the Monte Carlo Masters, reached the finals in the semi-finals in Madrid and Rome, and in the semi-finals of Roland Garros’ three big clay court tournaments, he said things started clicking in place at the Monte Carlo Masters, calling them a “push of confidence.”
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to the report.
