Ruud survives long rain delay to move into Rome semis

Casper Ruud reached his first Masters 1000 semifinal since winning in Madrid last year after beating Karen Khachanov 6-1, 1-6, 6-2 on Wednesday at the Italian Open in a match interrupted by a long rain delay.

Norwegian Ruud was one game down in the second set when a downpour fell on Rome, forcing the match to be paused for over two hours, and when play resumed Khachanov quickly levelled the match.

But Ruud claimed his tour-leading 139th win on clay since the start of the 2020 season and will face one of Rafael Jodar, who was knocked out in the Madrid last eight by Jannik Sinner, or Luciano Darderi.

"A little bit of a, you know, down period in the second (set) when we came back after the rain," said Ruud on court.

"But very proud of the first and the third sets... the quality that I played in the first and third sets is probably some of the best I felt on court recently."

Italy's Darderi is playing the biggest quarterfinal of his career after knocking out second seed Alexander Zverev on Tuesday.