Written by Richard Pagliaro | @Itenisi_Manje | Tuesday, May 28, 2024
Elite players practice short-term memory loss.
This is Casper Ruud's place remembering revenge helped him settle scores with the 29-year-old family today.
Seventh-seeded Ruud swept the qualifiers for Brazil Felipe Meligeni Alves 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 to reach the second round of Roland Garros for the seventh consecutive year.
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Scratch under this straight forward score line and you will see the victory of the Ruud family's revenge.
From Brazil Fernando Meligeni, who is the uncle of Felipe Meligeni Alves, the loser Christian Ruud, Casper's father and coach, 6-4, 6-4, back in the 1995 Bastad final, denying the elder Ruud the ATP title.
Although the lovely Casper Ruud didn't call the old revenge line—“Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. He killed my father. Prepare to die,”—on a coin toss, the two-time French Open finalist and his father discussed Ruud's revenge at a pre-match dinner this morning.
“We talked about it over breakfast, actually,” Ruud said. “Dad, as you said, lost in the Bastad final at one point in his career, so he never won an ATP tournament, and the guy he lost to in the final was Felipe's uncle.
“I think both my father and I wanted to take revenge on the Meligeni family. It was worth the wait, I guess. We had been waiting for many years, but we got it today.”
“Revenge is the best food,” reminds the old saying.
In Ruud's case, the payment arrangement made him hungry to go to Court Philippe Chatrier.
Geneva champion Casper Ruud earned his fifth straight victory on clay and his 20th Roland Garros win.
Ruud has now won 13 of his last 15 Roland Garros matches and will face Spain's Alejandro Davidovich Fokina or qualifier Valentin Vacherot in the second round.
Playing under the Chatrier's retractable roof today, Ruud said the slow conditions underscored the importance of building a patient point—even if it included the urgency to avenge your father's honor.
“You just have to prepare mentally that you won't hit many winners, and that the rallies may be longer, because the ball doesn't travel far or as fast in the air as on a normal sunny day,” said Ruud about indoor games in Paris. “I think you have to prepare for long rallies, and the balls will grow a little bit longer and last longer.
“It's not going to be easy to hit clean winners and quick points. I mean, I think it was worth my game today.”
Photo credit: Paul Kane/Getty
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