Ruud isn’t the first player to test out sinus support in matches: After an illness, Carlos Alcaraz was famously spotted wearing pink ones during the ATP Finals last fall, and though the Spaniard didn’t make it out of the round-robin phase of that tournament, he wore them again this week in Rotterdam, where he stormed to his first title of the season.
Alcaraz said he caught another cold at home between returning from the Australian Open and traveling to Rotterdam, and the strips have helped in his road to getting back to full health.
Ruud’s choice to wear them, though, didn’t come from necessity.
“I thought, ‘Why not?’ I bought four or five packs of it, in case I liked it, and I did,” he said.
But should he defeat Denis Shapovalov in Sunday’s final, Ruud already knows what he might spend a portion of the champion’s purse on.
“It’s starting to run out, so I need a little more!” he joked.
