Casper Ruud calls for change with Olympic tennis after being impacted by ‘strange’ rule in Paris

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Casper Ruud is preparing for a big year on the ATP Tour in 2025 having struggled at points this year.

2024 wasn’t the best year for the 26-year-old on the ATP Tour, with his form dropping dramatically upon the conclusion of the clay court season.

A clay court season that had proved fruitful for the Norwegian, as Ruud won the Barcelona Open, the biggest title of his career to date.

Ruud then lost in the Monte-Carlo Masters final to Stefanos Tsitsipas, before reaching his third consecutive French Open semi-final.

He then began to struggle, winning just a handful of matches for the remainder of the season before narrowly qualifying for the ATP Finals.

It was there where he rediscovered some of his early season form as Ruud reached the semi-finals, losing to eventual champion Jannik Sinner.

As he prepares for his 2025 season, Ruud has reflected on a clay tournament that he was unable to play earlier this year.

Casper Ruud calls out ‘strange’ rule that stopped him from playing mixed doubles at the 2024 Olympic Games

Speaking in a press conference ahead of the 2025 United Cup, Norwegian star Ruud gave his thoughts on the rule that prevented him from playing mixed doubles at the Olympics earlier this year.

“Yeah, it was an interesting rule,” he said.

“Honestly, I thought it was not really fair because you had two good players that could potentially team up.

“Criteria are strange and different in the Olympics somehow, because for singles suddenly you have doubles players needing to play singles.”

Ruud wanted to play alongside fellow Norwegian Ulrikke Eikeri, who is currently ranked 38th in the WTA doubles.

Unfortunately, the pair missed out on qualification, as mixed doubles pairs could only be made up of players already qualified for the single gendered doubles tournament.

Whilst Ruud and Eikeri are both strong players on the men’s and women’s sides, the lack of a ‘second player’ saw them both fail to qualify for the doubles tournament, thus excluding them from mixed doubles participation.

“Then you had two players like us that on rankings should be able, or on paper should be able to play together, and then we couldn’t because of the rules.

“It was a shame, I was ready to play if we could, but the rules didn’t allow it.

“There’s plenty of rules in the Olympics that they have to take care of.

“That’s a rule that they potentially should look at I think.”

Ruud and Eikeri played three matches together during the 2024 United Cup, losing two and winning one, coming out on top against the Croatian pair of Ivan Dodig and Donna Vekic.

Who won the 2024 Olympic tennis mixed doubles tournament?

Ruud and Eikeri weren’t able to compete in Paris earlier this year, partly thanks to the inclusion of several ‘all-star’ pairings, but who actually won the tournament?

Tomas Machac and Katerina Siniakova won the Olympic title, taking down the Chinese pair of Zhang Zhizhen and Wang Xinyu in the final.

The duo took down the likes of Felix Auger Aliassime and Gabriela Dabrowski, Kei Nishikori and Ena Shibahara, as well as Alexander Zverev and Laura Siegemund on their way to the Gold medal.

The event was a huge success, which saw several big names competing together, perhaps none bigger than Coco Gauff and Taylor Fritz.

The American duo will be taking to the court at the United Cup on Sunday, as will Ruud and Eikeri, as they get their 2025 campaigns underway.