SEOUL– The top seed Casper Ruud suffered a shock loss in the quarterfinals of the lone ATP Tour tournament in South Korea on Friday, falling to the unseeded Japanese player Yoshihito Nishioka in three sets.
Nishioka, world No. 56, defeated the second-ranked Ruud 6-2, 3-6, 6-2, in the biggest upset of the Eugene Korea Open at Olympic Park Tennis Center in Seoul. The 26-year-old from Japan is two victories away from his second career ATP title.
In the semifinals on Saturday, Nishioka will play Aleksandar Kovacevic of the United States, who eliminated fellow American Mackenzie McDonald with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory in their quarterfinal match Friday.
Nishioka took the first set over Ruud, the finalist at the French Open and the U.S. Open this year, with stunning ease. Nishioka broke Ruud at the start and quickly went up 4-1 before closing out the set with an ace.
Ruud responded in the second set by winning four of the final five games. In the deciding set, Nishioka had his first break of the set to go up 4-2 and didn’t lose another game the rest of the way.
He held his serve after going to deuce twice for a 5-2 lead, and one of the ATP’s shortest players relied on a couple of gorgeous volleys in the clinching game.
“Today, I played very aggressive. If I stayed back, it would be very tough,” Nishioka said. “So I tried to be a bit inside the court and then play aggressive, tried to get to the net and use drop volleys. It worked. A couple of games were very tough in the third set, but I still tried to put pressure on him.”
Ruud said he was tinkering with his game, stepping more into the court than he normally does, in search of some long-term improvements of his game.
After dropping the first set playing in a different way, Ruud went back to his normal style to take the second set. But the Norwegian returned to his experimental mode for the final set, emphasizing the process over the result.
“Even though the second set went well, I still wanted to try to improve some things. I challenged myself to step more into the court and forced myself to play more this way,” he said. “Even though it didn’t go well, I’d still like think it’s going to improve and help my game for the future.”
The other semifinal match in the singles will pit Denis Shapovalov of Canada against Jenson Brooksby of the U.S.
Shapovalov, the fourth seed, beat Radu Albot of Moldova 6-2, 6-2, in the quarterfinals Friday.
Brooksby, the eighth seed, had a walkover from the quarters after his scheduled opponent, No. 2 seed Cameron Norrie, withdrew due to an undisclosed illness.
Norrie was the third seeded player to pull out of the tournament. No. 6 seed Borna Coric pulled out before the start of the tournament with an ankle injury, and No. 3 seed Taylor Fritz quit before his second round match Thursday with an illness.
In the doubles, South Korea’s Chung Hyeon and Kwon Soon-soo advaced to the semifinals Friday by defeating Andre Goransson of Sweden and Ben McLachlan of Japan 7-6 (7-4), 2-6, 10-7.
In the semifinals set for Saturday, Chung and Kwon will take on Nicolas Barrientos of Colombia and Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela of Mexico, who knocked off another South Korean team, Song Min-kyu and Nam Ji-sung, in the quarterfinals earlier Friday.
The Korea Open is the first ATP tournament in Seoul since 1996. It will conclude Sunday with finals in both the doubles and the singles.
Source: Yonhap News Agency