Cerundolo lands the first point for Team World

Francisco Cerundolo has given Team World the opening point of the 2024 Laver Cup in Berlin with a 6-4 6-4 win over Casper Ruud. The Argentinean weathered the early storm of an impressive start by the Norwegian, to turn the match in his favor and give the visitors first blood in the three-day team tennis contest.

Despite having the better of the early exchanges, Ruud fell away from the mid-point of the first set. He lost his own serve three times, and only secured his first break when the 31^st-ranked Argentinean served for the match at 5-2. But despite a slightly wobbly serving display that included five double faults, Cerundolo held to take the 98-minute encounter on the Laver Cup’s trademark black hard court.

For the first six games, Ruud looked the likelier winner. While he was untroubled on his service games, serving big, and hitting his mighty forehand for several clean winners, Cerundolo struggled with his own serve, the second in particular looking vulnerable. The Argentinean faced three break points in the fourth game, and needed three powerful first serves to see off the danger.

But the momentum shifted in the course of two minutes in the seventh game. From 30-0 up, Ruud played four poor points to concede serve on a wayward backhand. From then on, his confidence seemed to desert him – the fiercely accurate groundstrokes began to break down and on several occasions he got his feet in a tangle looking for his forehand.

Meanwhile, Cerundolo found a consistency from the baseline that had eluded him at the start. Still, his second serve looked vulnerable, but Ruud was unable to take advantage, and the way Cerundolo finished the set summed up the collapse in Ruud’s confidence, the Norwegian blasting a forehand wide off a 124 km/h second serve.

“Tennis is like this!” a smiling Cerundolo said after the match. “There’s a lot of momentum, it can suddenly change, so you have to feel out the match. The first seven games were tough, long rallies, really tough games, but when I broke him I started playing better. Maybe he became a bit more frustrated or anxious to play more aggressive or change his plan. It’s a one-on-one fight, so sometimes you have to get out the frustrations of the other player.”

The bounce with which Ruud sprinted out of his chair at the start of the second set soon evaporated as he was broken to 15, Cerundolo making increasing use of the drop shot as his confidence grew. Cerundolo broke for the third time in the match to lead 5-2, but then suffered his only break as Ruud came into the net more. But serving at 5-4 Cerundolo made no mistake, winning the match on a drop shot that kissed the net to drop well short of the flailing Norwegian.

“It was tough,” said Ruud. “I felt I had a chance for an early lead. I was a bit unfortunate, but that’s the way tennis sometimes goes. I started off serving really well, but then he got hold of my serve, came up with some good returns, I made some bad unforced errors in that [seventh] game, and I didn’t exactly lose belief, but he played well, and I found it difficult to find holes in his game.

“It’s tricky because his second serve is a ball you think you can go for a winner on, and then you hit one or two out, and you get indecisive and overthink the situation a bit. This court maybe doesn’t fit my heavy topspin too well, but that’s my problem. I need to develop and become better, but today I was stuck between staying back and being more aggressive, and I left it too late to break him.”

The win makes Cerundolo the first South American to win multiple matches for Team World at the Laver Cup.

All matches on the first day are worth one point, on the second day they are worth two, and on Sunday they will be worth three each.