Rising tennis ace Casper Ruud: “One must be good at everything to succeed in tennis today”

The Sports Lowdown brings you an exclusive article with one of the best junior tennis players in the world about his goals and life as a professional player, his commercial deal with IMG and thoughts on the evolution of tennis. Article and interview conducted by Erik Andreassen. 

 

Casper Ruud has established himself over the last few months as one of the best junior players in the world. The Norwegian climbed to the top of the junior rankings in January and reached the final of the Junior Masters in China two weeks ago, where he succumbed 5-7 3-6 to South Korean youngster Hong Seong Chan.

The 17-year-old son of Christian Ruud, Norway’s highest-ranked player in history (39th in 1995 and 1997), has also taken huge steps at senior level, including his first senior victory at a Futures tournament in February.

Indeed, Norwegian commentator Jan Frode Andersen stated that Casper is a “complete player” during his fixture against Hong Seong Chan.

Ruud’s improvement is as far from an accident as you can come. The talented youngster, who trains up to 1500 hours a year, has a clear plan of what he needs to improve to get set for the senior level.

After a host of tournaments in 2015 and his first no1 ranking in January, Casper chose to drop this year’s Australian Open for juniors in order to prioritize training. The last few months have shown that his training has paid off in the form of good results.

Casper said: “The development has come so far regarding how players should train to be as good as possible. One must be good at absolutely everything, so I thought this year could be a great opportunity for me to develop the physical part of my play.

“During the last 10 years, the physique within tennis has become incredibly important. Borg, Sampras and Agassi were of course great players, but they were perhaps not lounging into the splits as Djokovic is doing today.

“I want to be stronger and more flexible in order to get ready for the seniors and get through the lower levels as soon as possible.”