Borges rallies from 6-1 down to stun Ruud and reach Basel quarter-finals

Nuno Borges lost the first set 6-1 to Casper Ruud on Wednesday and still walked off Centre Court a winner. The Portuguese came back to beat the ninth seed 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the second round of the Swiss Indoors Basel, and he is now in his fifth tour-level quarter-final of the season.

On the ATP rankings it was an upset. Borges is ranked No. 53 and Ruud No. 25. The Norwegian is a former World No. 2 and has spent most of this season trying to get back to his best.

A lopsided start, then a turnaround

For half an hour, nothing suggested an upset. Portuguese news agency Lusa reported that Borges started badly on the quick indoor court. He dropped serve twice in a row, and Ruud raced to 5-1 and closed out the opening set in under 30 minutes.

Things changed in the second set. Norwegian outlet Tipsbladet reported that Ruud failed to take two break points in that set. That let Borges settle into the rallies and level the match at 6-3. In the decider Borges held on to win 6-4, and he took the match in just under 1 hour and 50 minutes.

A Bola quoted Borges afterwards. He said he had started slowly against an opponent who was better suited to the conditions early on, and that the match turned once he got through the break points that could have gone Ruud's way.

A strong week for Borges in Basel

Borges had a much easier opener. He beat lucky loser Mika Brunold 6-3, 6-1 in about an hour. Brunold went 2-0 up, and after that Borges won 12 of the remaining 14 games.

This is the 29-year-old's second ATP 500 quarter-final of 2026; the first came on clay in Barcelona. According to A Bola, the win over Ruud was also his 99th at tour level. A semi-final would be his best ATP 500 result.

Borges grew up on clay in Portugal, so this result on a fast indoor hard court shows how much his game has developed. His wins over Brunold and Ruud were very different: one came from controlling the match from the baseline, the other from holding his nerve after a poor start.

Another setback for Ruud

Ruud's season has been disrupted by injury. Tipsbladet says those problems included withdrawals from the Cincinnati Masters and the US Open. He had shown signs of recovery in Shanghai, where he beat higher-ranked players before losing in the quarter-finals. In Basel he needed three sets to beat Swiss wild card Dominic Stricker 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 in the first round.

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The win over Stricker had looked like a platform for a deeper run. Instead Ruud leaves after one more match. The two-set slide after such a dominant first set will be the hardest part for him to accept. Commentator Christer Francke, quoted by Tipsbladet, suggested that Ruud may have felt he had to go for too much late in the match, or that things were moving too fast for him.

What comes next

The Basel draw is still full of big names. Top seed Ben Shelton survived a three-tie-break battle with Aleksandar Kovacevic, and Novak Djokovic is back at the event for the first time since 2011.

A Bola reports that Borges' quarter-final opponent will come from the section containing Jan-Lennard Struff and the winner of Djokovic's opening match against Ugo Humbert. If Djokovic gets through, Borges could face the 2009 Basel champion with a place in the semi-finals at stake.