Ruud and Rublev among what to watch for on Thursday
By Lee Vowell
Thursday is an unusually interesting day for a non-major and non-tournament final day in tennis. Not only top players, like Casper Ruud and Andrey Rublev, playing, but two other players participating in tournaments are sure to bring some level of dislike towards them. A lot of this happens at the Nordea Open, but not all of it.
To begin with the bit about actual matches, the Nordea Open, an ATP 250 dressed in an ATP 1000’s clothes this week, is shaping up to have a fantastic finish. Top-seeded Casper Ruud is set to face 22-year-old (yes, he looks 15) and 96th-ranked Alexander Shevchenko. Shevchenko hadn’t won a match since the French Open until the Nordea Open but he destroyed Juan Mauel Cerundolo on Tuesday 6-3 6-3 so who knows? Maybe Shevchenko can give Ruud a fight.
That’s doubtful, however, as Ruud is excellent on clay. Oh, the Nordea Open is on clay, so there you go.
Casper Ruud is among the noteworthy tennis matches on Thursday
Also in the Round of 16, second-seeded Rublev will take on Pavel Kotov. Kotov is coming off the Braunschweig Open where he made the finals. He didn’t play at Wimbledon. Rublev made the quarterfinals at Wimbledon where he lost to Novak Djokovic. Rublev’s best surface isn’t clay, though, so maybe there will be a surprise upset here.
Also at the Nordea Open, Alexander Zverev will play (presumably) but this is noteworthy more for the fact that Zverev is now facing new assault accusations unrelated to the ones he faced a few years ago from an ex-girlfriend. The new accusations are from Zverev’s former partner, Brenda Patea. The two have a daughter together as well.
One can bet that Zverev will be asked about the accusations after his match on Thursday against Thiago Monteiro. That is assuming Zverev faces the tennis press after the match.
Next. Twitter goes insane over Carlos Alcaraz winning Wimbledon. dark
Also noteworthy for Thursday is that Amarissa Toth will be back on the court at the Hungarian Grand Prix. Toth made headlines on Tuesday in her match against Shuai Zhang as Zhang disputed a call (which Zhang was correct in disputing), Toth eventually wiped out the mark where the ball landed, and then Toth celebrated as Zhang was too distraught over the unfairness of it all to continue. Basically, let’s hope Toth doesn’t win a game on Thursday.