Streaking Roberto Bautista Agut stuns ATP Finals contender Casper Ruud in Basel

Roberto Bautista Agut continued his late-career renaissance at the Swiss Indoors Basel on Wednesday, surviving a three-set tussle with Casper Ruud, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 to win a sixth straight match.

“I’m enjoying on the court,” Bautista Agut said on court after the match. “As you can see, I’m feeling well after a tough year with a lot of pressure, losing ranking, playing qualies. As soon as I got a little bit of calm, I could play better and I’m enjoying more on the court right now.”

The former world No. 9 was ranked outside the Top 100 earlier this season following a broken foot from a horseback injury, but won his first title in over two years at the European Open last week in Antwerp; the 36-year-old Spaniard shook off a second set blip to serve out the second-seeded Ruud in just over two hours on Basel’s Center Court.

“I love the sport. It’s been all my life playing tennis. It was not the way to finish. I still have a lot of tennis inside of me, and I was believing a lot in my game because I was practicing well. I just needed to keep pushing and keep fighting.”

I love the sport. It’s been all my life playing tennis. It was not the way to finish. I still have a lot of tennis inside of me, and I was believing a lot in my game because I was practicing well. I just needed to keep pushing and keep fighting. Roberto Bautista Agut

Ruud is currently ranked seventh in the PIF Race to Turin, but faces live competition from the likes of Andrey Rublev, Alex de Minaur, Grigor Dimitrov, and Stefanos Tsitsipas, all of whom remain in contention in Basel or the Erste Bank Open in Vienna and could threaten his chances of reaching a third ATP Finals.

Rublev competes in Basel later on Wednesday, while Dimitrov advanced in straight sets over Zhang Zhizhen in Vienna. De Minaur and Tsitsipas both compete in Vienna tomorrow, while Stockholm champion Tommy Paul lost his Vienna opener to fellow American Brandon Nakashima.

In his last ATP Finals appearance, Ruud finished runner-up to Novak Djokovic but the Norwegian has struggled to replicate his once-trademark consistency over the last two seasons. He looked to have rediscovered his best tennis on clay when he reached the Rolex Monte Carlo Masters final earlier this season and reached a third straight semifinal at Roland Garros, only for the first of several illnesses to derail his progress.

“I feel good, I feel fit again, but when you’re two weeks in bed, you start losing muscle tissue, so it took a bit of time and training over a few weeks to get back to feeling like I was 100%,” he said in New York. “I tried my best for Wimbledon, but it didn’t happen until maybe just a few weeks later.”

Since reaching the second week at the US Open, Ruud has won just one match last week in Stockholm, and was up against it early in Bautista Agut, a player he trailed 1-2 in their head-to-head.

Bautista Agut showed few signs of fatigue as he raced through the opening set, and scored the crucial break early in the decider before booking his place in the second round, where Canadian Denis Shapovalov awaits. The former Wimbledon semifinalist dispatched Chinese youngster Shang Juncheng in straight sets as a wild card on Tuesday.

Should he maintain his perfect head-to-head against Bautista Agut (leads 2-0), he could set up an all-Canadian quarterfinal against No. 8 seed Félix Auger-Aliassime, who faces Frenchman Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard on Thursday.