Tennis star Casper Ruud advanced to the third round of the Masters1000 Miami Open tournament with a victory over Belarusian Ilja Ivasjka in straight sets on Friday.

Ruud is the number three seed in Miami and has gone straight to the second round of the major tournament, which is played on hard courts.

There, the Norwegian faced Belarusian resistance and progressed relatively easily into round three with the win. The Norwegian won with the sets 6-2, 6-3.

– It was a good match today with a very good intensity from the first point. The forehand worked really well today and Casper was good on the important balls. I am very satisfied with the match, confides the father and trainer Christian Ruud to TV 2.

Dutchman Botic van de Zandschulp is waiting for the next round. The two have met three times before, with Ruud winning one of the matches.

Ruud had never met Ilja Ivasjka before. The Belarusian is in 80th place in the world rankings and suffered five consecutive defeats in different tournaments before getting up in Indian Wells. There were two wins before losing in the third round to losing finalist Daniil Medvedev.

Ruud hasn’t had a great start to the season. More recently in Indian Wells there was an outing against 97th-placed Christian Garin of Chile in the 3rd round.

Ruud has 600 ranking points to defend in Miami. Last year there was a final in the Masters 1000 tournament. There he failed against current world number one Carlos Alcaraz.

The Miami Open is at the bottom level of the four Grand Slam tournaments. The tournament in the United States is the last before the start of the clay-court season.

TV 2 / BNT