Australian Open: Ruud meets the Czech in the first round

The Australian Open draw has concluded on Thursday morning. Casper Ruud is the second seed in the tournament and will start against Czech Tomas Machac. The 22-year-old Machac is ranked 115 in the world and has never played Ruud before.

– We take one game at a time. Machac was young and on the rise. I haven’t seen him much, but I’ve seen him do some good results. So he may be good, like everyone else in the draw, wrote father and trainer Christian Ruud in a message to NRK.

If Ruud advances, he will face the winner of the match between Christopher O’Connell and Jenson Brooksby in the second round. In the third round, there is a possible meeting with Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (32nd in the world), before a possible meeting with Italian Matteo Berrettini (14th in the world) in the fourth round.

Berrettini and Ruud played against each other in the United Cup earlier in January, which the Italian won 6-4, 6-4. In the potential quarter-finals, the seed indicated that Ruud could face Taylor Fritz (world number nine) or Alexander Zverev (world number 13). Novak Djokovic (world number five) and Andrei Rublev (world number six) could contest the semifinals.

Ruud had the best fourth round result at the Australian Open as ever, starting in 2021. Last year he had to withdraw from the tournament due to injury.

The Norwegian reached the French Open and US Open finals last year. At the Australian Open, she has a chance to take over as world number one, but should at least make it to the final.