Barcelona: Norway’s Casper Ruud will play Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece in Sunday’s final of the Barcelona Open tennis tournament after the Norwegian beat Tomas Etcheverry and the Greek defeated Dusan Lajovic in the semifinals.
Ruud was leading 4-2 in the opening set before losing concentration, and he had to save two set points at 6-5 down in the first set against Etcheverry to force a tiebreak.
He took the tiebreak and won 7-6 (6), 6-4 in an hour and 57 minutes to complete a passage to the final that has seen him without dropping a set in the tournament, reports Xinhua.
The Norwegian third seed has won 25 matches so far this season after claiming the opening set and was again unstoppable despite Etcheverry’s powerful serve.
Tsitsipas also had to work in the second semifinal after the number five seed lost the opening set 7-5 to the unseeded Serbian.
The Greek fought back to claim the second set 6-4, and as he finally got his serve working, took the third set 6-2 as Lajovic began to tire.
–IANS