Casper Ruud, Andrey Rublev, Lorenzo Musetti, Francisco Cerundolo, seeded N.1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively in the Swedish tournament, passed the quarter-finals of the ATP 250 tournament on clay in Bastad on Friday.
This is the first time this year that the first four seeds of an ATP tournament all reach the last four.
Ruud (4th in the world), winner of the tournament in 2021, dominated the Austrian Sebastian Ofner (58th in the world), whom he met for the first time, 6-3, 6-4, to open the doors to the semi-finals.
The Norwegian will find on Saturday for a place in the final the Italian Lorenzo Musetti (16th), who defeated another Austrian, Filip Misolic, 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 with more difficulty.
Musetti made an opponent he was also meeting for the first time pay dearly for the loss of the first set: he left only three of the last twelve games to Misolic, ranked 139th in the world and passed through qualifications, where he had benefited from the withdrawal of Bosnian Damir Dzumhur in the second round.
The other semi-final will pit the Russian Rublev (7th in the world) against the Argentinian Cerundolo (20th).
Rublev came out quite clearly victorious 6-2, 6-3 from a duel against the German Alexander Zverev (19th), in a match which constituted the poster for these quarter-finals.
Rublev, after losing the first five confrontations against Zverev, has just won the last two, in 2023.
In his defense, the German, after a serious ankle injury having kept him away from the courts for six months, did not return to competition until January and did not recover the plenitude which made him the world No.2 at the time of his injury in the semi-finals of Roland-Garros 2022.
The Russian will play in the semi-final against Cerundolo. The 20th player in the world dominated Federico Coria 6-3, 6-3 in a hundred percent Argentinian quarter, and can still cherish the hope of retaining his title, the first of his career, won on July 17, 2022 on Swedish clay.