Casper Ruud is one step away from achieving a double goal: winning his first career Slam title and becoming world number one. The Norwegian overtook the Russian Karen Khachanov in the semifinals in four sets: after winning the first two halves, just before the tiebreak the possibility of ending the match in three escaped.
But his legs did not tremble in the fourth set, closing the game and moving into the last act of the US Grand Slam. With the next victory of Carlos Alcaraz in the other semifinal against French Tiafoe, the other confirmation has arrived: it will be the two of them who will compete for the title and aspire to become world number one.
Casper Ruud has therefore come to daydream the top of the ATP ranking after the semifinal of the US Open. A climb that this year has gone through the conquest of three 250 titles, all on clay (Buenos Aire, Geneva and Gstaad); to these, several endings must be added, from Paris to Miami.
Although no trophy is higher than a 250 title, the points that have brought Casper Ruud to the top 3 assured come from other sources.
Casper Ruud is one step away from the top of the ATP ranking
Of the 5850 points that the Norwegian has accumulated before the final of the US Open, 41.03% of these come from the Grand Slam results: in particular, the 2400 points won thanks to the Roland Garros and US Open finals.
No points, however, from the other two Grand Slam tournaments, caused the retirement before the start of the Australian Open and the failure to award points at Wimbledon. 29.83%, however, come from the Masters 1000: in particular, from the final in Miami, lost against Carlos Alcaraz, and the two semifinals in Montreal and Rome.
Only in third position the 250 tournaments, with 17.09% of the points won coming from these tournaments. Out of the current 5850 points, 1000 derive from the ATP 250: the three tournaments won this year and the defense of the points won last year in the San Diego Open.
Finally, the points from the remaining tournaments remain below 10%: of these, the highest is 6.84% of the Nitto Atp Finals, where he won 400 points, the result of the semifinal held in Turin. Tomorrow the last ride.