Different motivations

Ruud has rediscovered his tennis and the hunger to play for titles, while Foki wants to prove he deserved his spot on the Davis Cup team!

Ruud’s match against Wawrinka wasn’t straightforward—I was expecting a little walk in the park, but the Norwegian really got pushed around! That said, it was good Stan, and when he’s in that kind of form he’s devastating; not exactly surprising either, and in the end it’s 2-0 for Ruud. You can tell he’s found his confidence again and a good groove, which helps you win this kind of match, typically. Tomorrow he’s going to have to step it up a bit more though—Foki can play even better than that, and at this stage of the season he seems especially motivated to keep mixing it up at the top. He pulls himself out of tough matches by never letting up; he’s not always in that state, and you’ve got to give him credit. We think it’s largely because he wasn’t called up for the Davis Cup—he’s fired up and wants to prove he should’ve been on the team, but there’s also his own ambition and the fact his level is just super high, plain and simple. He’s having a great season and wants to do even better next year, and that starts right now—here he is in the quarterfinals, hungry as hell again. If his match against Brooksby didn’t take too much out of him physically (which I don’t think it did), he should once again be fucking tough to beat tomorrow, even for an in-form Ruud. So I’m imagining a tight, hard-fought match with an upset on the Spanish side!