The game ended 7-6 (7-3), 6-3. Ruud will face Spain’s Roberto Bautista-Agut in the next round.

– I will do what I can to take revenge there and win the match, Ruud told NTB.

The 34-year-old Bautista-Agut, who is ranked 18th in the world, has beaten Ruud in their two meetings. Last winter on hard court.

Ruud was seeded fourth in the tournament. Daniil Medvedev is the first seed.

Ruud, who had met Molcan before and won, had to fight for points almost all the way. The 24-year-old Slovakian is ranked 42 in the world and has never won any title in his ATP career.

– Nice match

Among other things, Ruud hit 13 serves in the game against Molcan.

– Service works very well. I’m satisfied with that. It was a good match. There are many difficult ball exchanges. Molcan is a quick player who keeps the ball low and is left-handed, the type of player I played against early in my career, but I cracked the code a bit today, said Ruud.

Ruud faced tough resistance in his first serve game. After a long duel, the Norwegian managed to pull him ashore before breaking Molcan in the next duel. It headed for a 6-4 win, but Molcan broke Ruud to 5-5. Ruud had to concede two set points. However, in the tiebreak, he was safe and ended up winning comfortably after one hour and twelve minutes.

Quarter-finals last year

Ruud broke to 3-1 in the second set and had a more comfortable path to progress than in the first. The Snarøya man threw out several serve aces and won 6-3. Molcan fought bravely and faced two match points, but had to give up on the third match point.

The tournament in Montreal is the Masters 1000 tournament, which falls below the four Grand Slam tournaments on the ATP tour. None of Ruud’s titles have come at this level. The Norwegian has nine tournament wins, all at level 250.

Last year, Ruud reached the quarter-finals in Montreal. Then there was a stoppage against Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece.