By Karolos Grohmann
PARIS (Reuters) -Norway’s Casper Ruud, the French Open runner-up in 2022 and 2023, crashed out of the tournament in the second round on Wednesday after losing 2-6 6-4 6-1 6-0 to the unseeded Nuno Borges of Portugal.
Ruud, a clay court specialist, looked to be cruising to an easy win when he bagged the first set 6-2 in 41 minutes.
The 28-year-old Borges, however, roared back, cutting down on errors and sharply increasing his points won on his first and second serve while breaking the seventh seed once.
The world number 41 then steamrolled through the third set courtesy of two back-to-back breaks early on that put him 4-0 up.
To make matters worse Ruud took a brief medical time-out after the third set with what looked like a calf muscle injury.
He returned but Borges broke him twice more to finish off the 26-year-old world number eight with a bagel.
Borges will play Alexei Popyrin in round three after the Australian eased past Alejandro Tabilo of Chile in straight sets.
(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann; editing by Clare Fallon)
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