Casper Ruud didn’t sugarcoat things after his Wednesday upset loss to Raphael Collignon.
Speaking with reporters in the bowels of Arthur Ashe Stadium, Ruud, the No. 12 seed in the U.S. Open, admitted that he was playing with “little to no confidence” in his game after suffering his latest Grand Slam defeat.
The Norwegian has had a Grand Slam season to forget, stemming from winning a combined three matches between the Australian Open, French Open and U.S. Open.
A lingering left knee injury forced him to skip Wimbledon this summer, only adding insult to injury for Ruud.
“It’s a mix of what you do in practice, how the last matches have gone, which have not been great,” Ruud explained. “I haven’t won that many matches, let’s say, in the last two, three months, also due to being out for a bit, but when I came back, I didn’t win that many matches to build up a lot of confidence in the matches. Also, feeling of mishitting a lot of shots, hitting a lot of frames out of my forehand, which is supposed to be my best shot. It’s not a good feeling.”
Ruud had managed to battle back from being down one set early in his second-round match before taking a 2-1 lead headed into the fourth set of the afternoon. The Norwegian let that slip away, though, dropping the final two sets to fall 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 5-7.
“I can just honestly say I don’t play with much confidence these days,” he said. “Will I try to go back, practice even better, harder? Yes, for sure. And am I motivated? Yes, but in the matches I don’t over-boost confidence at them at the moment.”
Prior to the men’s singles draw, Ruud made it to the final of the mixed doubles tournament held last week and won his first-round match against Sebastian Ofner on Monday night.
However, even with the win under his belt to start the tournament, Ruud credited it to more of the mistakes his opponent made than his own play.
“It wasn’t a match where I came out and played flawless and played unbelievable winners and was kind of dominating,” he said.
When asked whether it was more practice time or more time playing in matches that would help improve his confidence, he noted that he was back on the practice court right after his loss in Cincinnati and that he needs to just be “honest with myself.”
“The evaluation is that I do too many mistakes at crucial points, especially out of my forehand,” Ruud said. “So something I will go back home and work on, and the only thing I can do is wait for my next match, which will be in Laver Cup in some weeks.”