While much of the tennis world was preparing for the grass-court swing last week, Casper Ruud was in Mallorca for a very different occasion. The world No. 6 spent the long weekend of June 11-14 at the Grand Hotel Son Net, celebrating his marriage to Maria Galligani alongside family and close friends. Among the guests was a particularly special attendee: the couple’s daughter, born on January 30, 2026, making her not only the youngest guest at the wedding but also the most important one.

Ruud and Galligani had been preparing for the Mallorca celebration, which lasted an entire weekend and featured a welcome dinner, a golf tournament, yoga sessions, hiking, and a tennis-inspired garden party that ran well into the night.

The couple’s story dates back to the suburbs of Oslo, where Ruud and Galligani lived near each other but never quite had the chance to properly meet. It was not until March 2018 that Ruud’s best friend and fellow tennis player, Joachim Bjerke, introduced them at a nightclub in Oslo. They met on a tennis court a few months later and began dating in September, on the same island where they would eventually tie the knot seven years later.

Ruud proposed to Galligani in the Maldives in November 2024 during a beach holiday, following a game of backgammon that Ruud won.

“I was tired of losing and went down to the water to watch the sunset. After a while, Casper joined me, gave me a hug, and said he had something that he thought would cheer me up,” Maria recalled. He got down on one knee.

Oslo event planners Off Piste were behind the entire wedding, which took place against a mountain backdrop adorned with palm trees and floral arrangements. Ruud wore a specially made black tuxedo for the ceremony before changing into a white one for the dinner. Designed by her friend and Norwegian designer Ove Harder Finseth, Maria’s strapless gown was paired with Manolo Blahnik shoes and jewelry by Ole Lynggaard.

After the vows, the couple walked back down the aisle to Ain’t No Mountain High Enough by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. “After we had both said ‘I do,’ the atmosphere became playful and celebratory,” the couple shared, via Vogue.

The reception featured heartfelt toasts and a night of dancing, with Ruud himself taking to the DJ decks at one point, standing on stage with his arms wide open before a room full of guests.

A week away that reflects a relationship built around tennis

Ruud has always been candid about the importance of his personal life to his professional career, and this was no exception, as the Spaniard opted for Mallorca for Wimbledon’s warm-up week, rather than heading to a grass court. He has said in the past that Maria’s support has been a pillar of strength for him, particularly after he suffered three Grand Slam losses at Roland Garros in 2022, the US Open in 2022, and Roland Garros again in 2023, and has been a stabilizing force. 

“It’s been incredible. I owe a lot of my success to all my closest ones. My family. My friends. My fiancée Maria. We got engaged last year so she’s been an incredible support for me over many years now…I’m really happy and it’s great I’m surrounded by amazing people. I’m a really lucky guy,” he said it after winning the Madrid Open last year.   

A psychologist by profession, Maria has been a constant in his player box on those days and has provided the couple with a blueprint for dealing with the pressure inflicted on a relationship by elite tennis. The birth of their daughter in January added another dimension to that picture, and the fact that the couple planned the timing deliberately so she could be present at the wedding says something about the kind of life they are building around the demands of the tour. 

Ruud enters Wimbledon on June 29, without even playing a warm-up match on the grass. It’s a calculated chance from a player who’s never been beyond the second round of the All England Club and a risk that his team will have agreed to. On grass, where his heavy topspin game is less effective than on clay, deep runs have been hard to come by. 

The week in Mallorca won’t have improved his grass-court movement or return game. What it will have provided him is something that warm-up tournaments can’t produce: The settled, grounded calm that comes from marrying his eight-year-old relationship, in the place where it all began, with his daughter in the front row. Whether that translates into a deep Wimbledon run is another question entirely, but for Ruud, the priorities of the past week have never been in any doubt.