Argentine Diego Schwartzman scored a brilliant 6-3 6-3 victory over Norwegian Casper Ruud on Wednesday and advanced to the quarterfinals of the Indian Wells Tennis Masters 1,000, which is played in California, United States, on concrete surface and outdoors.
The “Peque” Schwartzman, located in fifteenth place in the ATP world ranking and eleventh seeded of the tournament, built a great job to beat the Norwegian Ruud (10th), one of the best players of the season, in the round of 16. one hour and 44 minutes of play.
The porteño, who achieved his first win of the year against a Top 10, was very precise and aggressive in the first set, in which he broke the service in the opening game to the Norwegian. With his powerful forehand, his ability to find angles and his patience to take the longest rallies, Schwartzman kept his serve, took advantage of Ruud’s problems to do the same and took the set 6-3.
In the second boy, with a more fought start, “Peque” recovered from the loss of his serve, which allowed Ruud to take a 2-0 lead, to break in the fourth and eighth game, and win again. by 6-3. In addition, the Norwegian requested medical assistance for minor problems in his right arm that, finally, did not prevent him from continuing to play.
“They should always do it in October, because in March I never play very well here. It’s a little different, the ball jumps a little more in March,” the Peque joked after the match, referring to the fact that Indian Wells is generally held at The beginning of the year and, due to calendar problems due to the pandemic (it was not disputed in 2020), it was moved to October.
“I think that maybe he comes here with confidence and ready for the tournament and obviously I was lucky because I saved several match points before reaching the second round,” added the Argentine, who had arrived at this match after leaving local Maxime Cressy on the road. (145th) and the Englishman Daniel Evans (22nd).
Schwartzman is now waiting for the winner of the cross between North American Tommy Paul (60th) and South African nationalized British Cameron Norrie (26th) to find out who will be his rival in the Indian Wells quarterfinals.
With the triumph of “Peque”, the Argentine shortened the record against Ruud, who had beaten him on the two occasions in which they had previously faced each other: both this year, at the 1,000 Masters in Monte Carlo and Cincinnati (6-4 and 6 -3 in two games).
Ruud (10th) was looking for his 50th win this season, having achieved a total of five ATP Tour titles this year, as well as helping Team Europe lift the Laver Cup.
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