Ruud’s ATP Finals hopes fading after Swiss Indoors defeat

A first-round loss at the Swiss Indoors Basel has hurt Casper Ruud’s hopes of making the ATP Finals for the third time in his career, with the Norwegian losing 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 on Wednesday to Roberto Bautista Agut.

Ruud started the week sitting seventh in the Race to Turin but is now at risk of falling out of the top eight qualifiers after his loss to the world No.45.

Bautista Agut has been in fine form this October, with the 36-year-old becoming the oldest ATP Tour champion this year when he lifted the European Open title on Sunday.

He picked up where he left off against Ruud, winning 80% of first-serve points and breaking his opponent three times across the two-hour, three-minute clash.

Ruud was far from his best, spraying an uncharacteristic 36 unforced errors over the three sets.

Meanwhile, Andrey Rublev and Grigor Dimitrov both picked up wins on Wednesday to advance their cases for ATP Finals qualification.

Rublev — the favourite with top tennis betting sites to win in Basel — defeated Alejandro Tabilo 7-6, (3), 6-1 and moves to 3,720 points in the Race to Turin, just 125 behind Ruud.

Dimitrov played in the week’s other ATP 500 tournament in Vienna, prevailing over China’s Zhizhen Zhang, 6-4, 7-5.

The Bulgarian cannot overtake Ruud this week but has closed the gap between the two to 695 points, with the opportunity to draw within 245 points of the world No.8 if he wins the Vienna Open.

One player who can bunny-hop Ruud this week is Alex de Minaur, who got his campaign in Austria underway on Tuesday with a 2-6, 6-2, 6-2 win over Jan-Lennard Struff.

The second seed is a -303.03 favourite at Bovada to beat Flavio Cobolli on Thursday and book a place in the quarter-finals.

De Minaur sits just 440 points behind Ruud and can go as high as 3,855 — 10 points more than Ruud’s total — if he wins the tournament.

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