Fifth seed Fernando Verdasco is one step away from reaching the SkiStar Swedish Open final for the third time (2013, 2016) after coming through an all-Spanish encounter against Pablo Carreno Busta 6-2, 6-2 over 85 minutes on Friday.

Verdasco broke for a 3-1 lead, then saved three break points in the next game of the first set. He also broke Carreno Busta’s serve in the first and seventh games of the second set for his 20th match win of the season (20-17). “I think I played my best match so far in Bastad,” said Verdasco. “I knew it was going to be a really difficult match, as Pablo beat me in Miami this year and also in Basel a couple of years ago. “

He will now prepare to meet third-seeded Italian Fabio Fognini in Saturday’s semi-finals. World No. 15 Fognini, who knocked out Federico Delbonis of Argentina 6-4, 6-3 in 81 minutes, earned his sixth ATP World Tour crown in February at the Brasil Open (d. Jarry). Verdasco leads Fognini 4-2 in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series (including a 3-0 mark on clay).

Fourth-seeded Frenchman Richard Gasquet defeated #NextGenATP Norwegian wild card Casper Ruud 7-6(4), 6-2 in one hour and 36 minutes. “He had some chances to break in the first set, but once I won that I was more confident,” said Gasquet, who captured his 15th ATP World Tour trophy at the Libema Open (d. Chardy) last month.

Gasquet will next face Swiss lucky loser Henri Laaksonen, who recovered from 2-4 down in the deciding set to beat Simone Bolelli, an Italian qualifier, 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 in one hour and 54 minutes.

Peralta/Zeballos Reach Doubles Final
Second seeds Julio Peralta and Horacio Zeballos lost just eight of their service points to sweep past Jurgen Melzer and Philipp Petzschner 6-3, 6-2 in 53 minutes for a place in the doubles final. Peralta and Zeballos move into their eighth ATP World Tour team final (4-3). They await the winners of top seeds Max Mirnyi and Philipp Oswald versus Bolelli and Fognini.

Tim Smyczek, in his 13^th year of professional tennis, will play in his first tour-level semi-final at the Dell Technologies Hall of Fame Open in Newport. The 30-year-old American beat wild card Jason Jung of Chinese Taipei 6-1, 5-7, 6-4 on Thursday to make the last four at the season’s final grass-court tournament.

“Winning a few in a row is nice. The confidence grows. It’s nice to be able to build on some of the things that I did well in my earlier rounds,” Smyczek said.

Smyczek will meet another first-time tour-level semi-finalist in Indian Ramkumar Ramanathan. The 23-year-old from Chennai beat Canadian Vasek Pospisil 7-5, 6-2 in 78 minutes. Ramanathan saved both break points faced against Pospisil, who upset second seed Mischa Zverev of Germany on Wednesday.

Norway’s Casper Ruud, who beat Spanish legend David Ferrer on Thursday to reach the SkiStar Swedish Open quarter-finals, has learned a lot in the past 17 months, since he made his first ATP World Tour semi-final at the Rio Open presented by Claro in February 2017.

He’s learned how to train like Rafael Nadal, how to better take care of his body and how to push himself every week. But more than anything, Ruud has learned that he needs to bring a different mindset to his tennis. He needs to be more greedy.

Last year, Ruud, in just his third tour-level event, sprinted to the Rio semi-finals, winning his first three ATP World Tour matches at the 500-level event. He became the youngest semi-finalist on the ATP World Tour since Borna Coric in Basel 2014 and the lowest-ranked player to make a 500-level semi-final since Alexander Zverev (No. 285) in Hamburg in 2014.

But then Ruud relaxed. Instead of building on the best week of his young career, for the rest of 2017, he won only four more tour-level matches.

“I was really proud of myself, which you should be, but I was maybe a bit too happy with playing good that week… I wasn’t maybe greedy enough to go for many good weeks in a row,” Ruud told ATPWorldTour.com.

“Of course you can be happy and proud over some good wins, but there’s always another match, and usually the day after, if you win. You always have to be ready and greedy to get that win.”

Ruud will try to practise that approach on Friday when he looks to return to an ATP World Tour semi-final for the first time since his deep run in Brazil. The 19-year-old Ruud will face fourth seed Richard Gasquet, who beat Austrian Gerald Melzer 1-6, 6-3, 6-1.

Ruud’s win on Thursday, besides placing him into his second ATP World Tour quarter-final, was also extra special because of who it came against. Ferrer, a three-time Bastad champion (2007, 2012, 2017), is one of a handful of players Ruud tries to emulate on court. Ruud’s former coach Pedro Rico suggested that Ruud try to model Ferrer and Rafael Nadal’s effort.

“I really look up to his attitude and enjoy watching him play,” Ruud said of Ferrer. “He’s always serious… He’s one of the greatest fighters who’s ever played.”

Ruud hasn’t faced Nadal yet, but he’s trained with the No. 1 player in the ATP Rankings. In April 2017, Ruud worked with Rafa in Mallorca for a week.

“The first two days were really tough, I was really tired,” Ruud admitted.

He also realised what the rest of the ATP World Tour has known for the past 15 years. “It was not easy to keep up with Rafa on clay and not get so tired,” he said.

Ruud and his former coach Rico have stopped working together, and Ruud now works with and travels with his father, Christian Ruud, a former Top 40 player in the ATP Rankings who retired in 2001.

Read More: First of Many? #NextGenATP Rublev Battles Past Felix In Umag

In Bastad, Casper Ruud will try to emulate Ferrer and his father. Dad reached the 1995 Bastad final, and if Casper Ruud can win two more matches and match Dad’s achievement, he’ll play for his first ATP World Tour title and climb further up the ATP Race To Milan.

The top seven players in the Race will qualify automatically for the Next Gen ATP Finals, to be held 6-10 November in Milan, while the eighth spot will be reserved for the winner of an all-Italian qualifier tournament to be held just prior to the prestigious 21-and-under event.

Ruud had to watch the inaugural Next Gen ATP Finals on TV last year. He’s currently in 10^th place in the Race, three spots away from making his debut at the Fiera Milano.

“[The Race] is something that I think all the under-21 guys are following,” Ruud said. “It would be a huge thing and a huge achievement to get there this year because there are so many good players under 21 these days.”

Years from now, we could all be looking back at it as the start of a great FedEx ATP Head2Head rivalry.

Twenty-year-old Andrey Rublev of Russia fought off 17-year-old Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-4, 6-7(4), 6-3 on Thursday at the Plava Laguna Croatia Open Umag, denying the Canadian teenager his biggest win to date.

Rublev, the fourth seed and defending champion, was playing in his first match in three months because of a stress fracture in his lower back, and how much the return victory meant to him was evident after Auger-Aliassime’s final backhand landed wide. Rublev bent over and buried his face in his hands.

“I was super happy because it’s my first match since three months, and I was really happy to win it. It was a little bit emotional moment for me,” Rublev told ATPWorldTour.com.

He wasn’t sure what to expect in his return, but Rublev was pleased with his fight and the outcome. “In the end, everything was better than I expected,” he said.

Auger-Aliassime, who’s the youngest player (17) in the Top 150 of the ATP Rankings (No. 144), was aggressive and confident throughout the two-hour, 30-minute second-round match, pushing Rublev behind the baseline and frustrating the Russian, who finished runner-up at last year’s inaugural Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan.

Rublev, however, employed his experience and composed himself well in the third set after Auger-Aliassime led by a break 3-1. Rublev won the final five games, breaking twice before serving it out.

The No. 35 player in the ATP Rankings is looking to go back-to-back in Umag. Last year at the ATP World Tour 250-level event, Rublev was the first lucky loser in eight years to win an ATP World Tour title. He will next meet sixth seed Robin Haase, who beat Slovakian qualifier Martin Klizan 3-6, 6-4, 6-3.

Argentine qualifier Marco Trungelliti, who famously drove from Buenos Aires to Paris to play in Roland Garros as a lucky loser, beat Hungary’s Marton Fucsovics 5-7, 6-4, 6-2 to advance to his first tour-level quarter-final. Trungelliti will next play Russian Evgeny Donskoy, who beat second seed Damir Dzumhur 7-6(3), 3-6, 6-4.

Take a 50-50 battle, shift it ever so slightly to a 53.5 per cent advantage, and you are perfectly positioned to be competing in the Nitto ATP Finals at The O2 in London this November.

The eight best performers from the 2018 season will play in the prestigious season finale from 11-18 November, and the field has become more settled with around 60 per cent of the season now completed.

An Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers analysis of the current eight players who lead the ATP Race To London after Wimbledon shows that their competitive advantage with points won so far in 2018 is a much smaller margin than you might think.

Top Eight In ATP Race To London: Percentage Points Won, Serving, Returning & Total

What’s interesting is when you compare each player in the serve and return categories to the top eight average, no player is above the average in both of them.

Average Percentage Points Won Serving = 68.7%

Players above the average:

Roger Federer = 74.4%

Kevin Anderson = 71.0%

Marin Cilic = 70.2%

Average Percentage Points Won Returning = 39.4%

Players above the average:

Rafael Nadal = 45.3%

Novak Djokovic = 42.8%

Alexander Zverev = 40.1%

Dominic Thiem = 39.6%

The combined total of percentage of points won from serving and retuning has three very familiar faces above the top eight average.

Average Total Percentage Points Won = 53.5%

Players above that average:

Rafael Nadal = 56.5%

Roger Federer = 55.3%

Novak Djokovic = 54.4%

The only player in the top eight in the ATP Race To London who does not feature above the average in any of the three categories is Juan Martin del Potro. But he is less than one percentage point away in all three.

The ATP Race To London is starting to take shape, but there is still time for other players to make a late season surge. The next four knocking on the door are John Isner, Kei Nishikori, Kyle Edmund and Borna Coric.

All they need do is win about three and a half points out of every hundred more than their opponents and London may well be within reach.

Third-seeded Italian Fabio Fognini booked his place in the SkiStar Swedish Open quarter-finals on Thursday after beating Swedish #NextGenATP wild card Mikael Ymer 1-6, 6-4, 6-2 in two hours and five minutes.

Ymer, having swept through the first set, recovered from 1-3 down in the second set and had a break point chance for a 5-4 lead, but Fognini held serve in a 20-point game. Fognini broke to love in the sixth game of the decider and went on to deny 19-year-old Ymer the biggest win of his fledgling career.

Fognini goes on to challenge Argentina’s Federico Delbonis, who broke serve four times to beat eighth-seeded Australian John Millman 6-4, 6-4 in one hour and 33 minutes. Delbonis reached the Argentina Open semi-finals (l. to Bedene) in February.

Later today, fourth-seeded Frenchman Richard Gasquet makes his tournament debut against Gerald Melzer of Austria and seventh seed David Ferrer, the 2007, 2012 and 2017 champion from Spain, takes on #NextGenATP Norwegian wild card Casper Ruud.