BARCELONA: Casper Ruud racked up a tour-leading 26th win of the season on Thursday by reaching the Barcelona Open quarter-finals.

The world number six from Norway eased past Jordan Thompson of Australia 6-1, 6-4 to move clear of Jannik Sinner for most wins in 2024.

Ruud, the runner-up to Stefanos Tsitsipas at the Monte Carlo Masters last weekend, raced into a 5-0 lead against Thompson.

He then clinched a break in the seventh game of the second set before moving onto victory in just 73 minutes.

Ruud will next face Matteo Arnaldi after the Italian world number 40 defeated Argentina’s Marco Trungelliti 6-3, 6-0.

Britain’s Cameron Norrie defeated Roberto Bautista Agut 6-4, 6-3 to make the last-eight and record his 200th tour-level win.

“It’s a big tournament with a lot of historic past champions, so I want to try and win this tournament,” said Norrie of the Spanish clay-court event.

On Wednesday, Spanish veteran Bautista Agut had won his 400th career match by seeing off Andrea Vavassori in the second round.

“I know that yesterday Roberto got 400, so I’m halfway to his. To get 400 wins is impressive and I’ll take that, a 200th win against a top player,” added Norrie.

The Briton next faces Argentine 13th seed Tomas Martin Etcheverry for a place in the semi-finals.

Published in Dawn, April 19th, 2024