{"id":53421,"date":"2022-11-17T11:45:33","date_gmt":"2022-11-17T16:45:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=53421"},"modified":"2022-11-17T11:45:33","modified_gmt":"2022-11-17T16:45:33","slug":"rafael-nadal-ruud-atp-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2022\/11\/17\/rafael-nadal-ruud-atp-finals\/","title":{"rendered":"Two keys to Rafael Nadal’s win over Casper Ruud at the ATP Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rafael Nadal of Spain beat Casper Ruud of Norway 7-5 7-5 in his last Green group match of the ATP Finals on Thursday. It was the 36-year-old’s first win in the tournament after his back-to-back losses against Taylor Fritz<\/a> and Felix Auger-Aliassime<\/a> earlier this week.<\/p>\n

Thursday’s match lasted for an hour and 42 minutes as Nadal had no problem extending his winning run against the 23-year-old Ruud.<\/p>\n

Two keys to Rafael Nadal’s win over Casper Ruud at the ATP Finals<\/h2>\n

#1. Nadal served with a lot of firepower:<\/h4>\n

Nadal was absolutely world-class with his serving on Thursday and fired as many as 16 aces in the match. On a fast surface, Ruud often had no chance against Nadal’s barrage of serves, as the Spaniard never got broken in the match.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the Spaniard won 93% of the points on his first serve in the match and did not lose a point on his serve in the second set until he committed a double fault in the ninth game. The Spaniard managed to get a break each in the two sets and had no problem registering a win.<\/p>\n

#2. Nadal’s forehand did not give Ruud much respite:<\/h4>\n

Nadal was also at his fearsome best while hitting his venomous forehand. He was particularly impressive while hitting the inside-out and down-the-line forehand on the day and hit 16 winners off the wing.<\/p>\n

However, Nadal could not hit his crosscourt forehand with a sharp angle on most of the occasions, but whenever he could, he almost always managed to hit a powerful inside-out forehand subsequently after having pushed the Norwegian to a corner. The Spaniard finished the match with 37 winners against Ruud’s 20 and committed 16 unforced errors against the Norwegian’s 18.<\/p>\n

Main Photo:
\nEmbed from Getty Images<\/a>