Casper Ruud: Liverpool-style burnout? 'Small margins'? What's behind star's dip in form after Indian Wells loss?

Casper Ruud has been within touching distance of getting to world No. 1 over the last six months. First at the 2022 US Open, when Ruud could have got to the top of the rankings if he had beaten Carlos Alcaraz in the final, and then at the Australian Open, when he needed to make the final to have a chance of replacing Alcaraz as No.

1. Ad Neither worked out for Ruud – and not much has gone his way this year either. ATP Indian WellsHighlights: Garin stuns third seed Ruud in straight-sets victory at Indian WellsYESTERDAY AT 22:34 Coming off the back of a hugely successful 2022 season that saw him reach two Grand Slam finals on different surfaces (French Open and US Open), qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals and get to No.

2 in the world rankings, Ruud is yet to win back-to-back matches this year. In trying to find reasons why, the obvious first one is potential burnout. Ruud has played a lot of tennis over the last two years – 73 matches in 2022, 76 in 2021.

Those numbers are similar to players around Ruud’s age and ranking like Stefanos Tsitsipas and Andrey Rublev, but are far higher than Ruud’s previous totals (35 matches in 2020, which was disrupted by Covid-19, and 42 in 2019). Ruud also tacked on a two-week, five-match Latin American exhibition tour with Rafael Nadal at the end of his 2022 season. Just days after facing off at the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin on November 17, Ruud and Nadal travelled to Argentina together.