Casper Ruud’s run at a third straight Geneva Open title has ended in a three-set loss to Nicolas Jarry in the quarter-finals but Cameron Norrie is marching on in defence of his Lyon Open crown.
As the two European clay-court events, warm-ups for the French Open, reached the business end on Thursday, top seed Ruud’s 3-6 7-6 (7-2) 7-5 defeat was the shock of the day at the Swiss event.
Ruud had his serve broken at 5-5 in the third set after the 54th-ranked Chilean fired two powerful forehand winners.
Jarry’s serve held up after wasting an earlier break that forced a 4-3 lead, and took his second match-point chance with an overhead smash winner.
Ruud will now head earlier to the French Open where he is seeded No.4 when play starts Sunday.
The 24-year-old won the warm-up event at Geneva in 2021 and last year, when he also reached the final at Roland Garros, losing to Rafael Nadal.
Jarry earned a rematch in the semi-finals on Friday of the 2019 final at Geneva that he lost to Alexander Zverev.
Zverev had an easy passage through his quarter-final, leading 4-1 in the first set when 59th-ranked Wu Yibing of China retired with an injury.
Second-seeded Taylor Fritz and fourth-seeded Grigor Dimitrov will meet in the other semifinal.
Fritz brushed aside Ilya Ivashka 6-1 6-2 in just 51 minutes in the opening match but Dimitrov had much harder work in defeating Australian Chris O’Connell 6-7 (5-7) 7-5 6-4 win.
In Lyon, British No.1 Cameron Norrie continued his solid run with victory over sixth seed Sebastian Baez to reach the semi-finals.
The defending champion secured a 6-2 2-6 6-1 victory in his quarter-final with the same man he defeated at the same stage of last year’s competition.
The victory set up a semi-final for Norrie with Francisco Cerundolo, who defeated another Brit Jack Draper 4-6 6-4 6-3.
Brandon Nakashima reached the other semi-final with a 6-3 7-6 (7-4) win against third seed Tommy Paul and he’ll comes up against Arthur Fils, who reached the last four when Felix Auger-Aliassime withdrew with a shoulder injury.
Australian Associated Press