By Matt Hill
The rematch of last week’s Monte Carlo final had a totally different feel than the match just seven days ago. Casper Ruud turned the tables on Stefanos Tsitsipas and handled the Greek star somewhat comfortably in a 7-5, 6-3 win in the Barcelona ATP 500 event. Ruud was broken at the very beginning of the match, but after the initial break it was all the Norwegian. He dictated play throughout and then broke Tsitsipas twice in the second set to take the set and he never let up from there.
The second set was all Ruud and was never really threatened on serve en route to the title. Though Tsitsipas has several Masters 1000 titles, he has never won an ATP 500 event. Ruud meanwhile despite being in three grand slam finals, took his first 500 crown on this day in Spain. It was his first title outside of an ATP 250 so definitely the biggest crown of his career.
In the ATP 250 BMW Open in Munich, Jan Leonard Struff won his first ATP title following a 7-5, 6-3 win over Taylor Fritz.
Struff has to battle near freezing conditions to finally get that elusive title. It was a very good week for Fritz as well as he prepares to try and make his first big run at Roland Garros next month.
The Bucharest final saw Marton Fuscovics take top honors over Mariano Navone 6-4, 7-5.
On the women’s side, Elena Rybakina dominated Marta Kostyuk 6-2, 6-2 to win a new Porsche at the WTA 500 Stuttgart Porsche Grand Prix
The tournament might have been won on Saturday when she defeated No. 1 seed and three-time Roland Garros champion Iga Swiatek 6-3, 4-6, 6-3.
This was close to a three-hour marathon that was probably one of the highest quality matches on the WTA Tour this season. Though the Stuttgart conditions are not quite like the conditions at Roland Garros, Rybakina looks to be the biggest challenger to Swiatek right now at that tournament.
There definitely is no need for Swiatek to panic. When we get to Rome those conditions are similar to Roland Garros and we will get a better feel for how things could play out.
The Rouen, France final, ironically a city just a couple of hours from where Roland Garros is going to be played, saw American Sloane Stephens get back into the winners’ circle following an6-1, 2-6, 6-2 win against Magna Linette. This was a huge win for Stephens, the 2017 US Open Champion who has struggled in recent years but on any given day can defeat anyone in the world. As you can see it was a big week of tennis at the 500 and 250 levels as the business end of the Road to Roland Garros gets set to begin this week.
