(Tennis news) Casper Ruud won a season leading fifth title at the San Diego Open by beating Cameron Norrie in a one sided final. Ruud only lost two games in the final as he unleashed powerful winners against the left hander and now has the most titles this season. 

Ruud took the first six games as he gave away no options to Norrie who never got the chance to settle in the match as the first set got over in 26 minutes. In the second set, Ruud continued his dominating performance to lift the trophy and now has more titles than Novak Djokovic, Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev who have four each.

Ruud has won all the five finals he has reached this year, his previous four titles came on clay as this is his first hardcourt title. He is currently in eighth position in the race for World Tour Finals and has improved his game in the hardcourt this year. Ruud had defeated Andy Murray, Lorenzo Sonego and Grigor Dimitrov on his way to winning the title at San Diego.

Ruud is now three wins away from 50 tour wins this season and has lost 12 matches. He won his first tour title last year in clay at Buenos Aires and this year is on top with five titles. The Norwegian now sets his eyes on the Masters 500 and 1000 as he reached the semifinals at Rome last year where he lost to Novak and also reached the last four at Hamburg losing to Andrey Rublev. This year he reached the quarterfinals at Toronto where lost to Stefanos Tsitsipas and also in Cincinnati as he lost to Zverev.

Ruud also reached the fourth round of the Australian Open and the last four at Monte Carlo and Madrid. Clay has been his favourite surface as the numbers clearly suggest, the world tour finals is only a month away and Ruud will be eager to bring out his San Diego form. The next tournament is the Indian Wells as the Shanghai Masters, China Open and the Japan Open have been cancelled owing to the pandemic.

There are two Masters 1000 and 500 events left as there are four 250 events left. The players will look to accumulate as many points as possible for the World Tour finals as only Djokovic, Medvedev and Tsitsipas have qualified for the event and the remaining five spots are crucial for the players who are next.

Also read: Aslan Karatsev knocks out Hubert Hurkacz at the San Diego Open