"I'm disappointed, I didn't play really well. I was also a little tired from the previous six matches," reacted the Frenchman who had been drafted from qualifying.
"It was difficult to keep the intensity, to stay well on my legs. Even if I have to give all the credit to my opponent, because he played well, better than me in this match, I think I I had my chances and I could have done much better," he added.
Very nervous and a little lost in the immensity of the Arthur Ashe he was discovering, the 23-year-old Frenchman missed his date during the first two sets, committing a lot of unforced errors.
Frustration quickly won over him.
It first manifested itself in a rather unusual way, when he did a series of push-ups, as if to punish himself - and perhaps re-motivate himself - after a point lost at the start of the second set.
Less funny, he angrily sent two balls in quick succession into the stands, just before the loss of the round, logically receiving a penalty point, after having received a warning a little earlier for the same infraction.
There was better in the third set.
Led 4-2, he had a burst, breaking and then pushing Ruud to the decisive game.
A tie-break during which Moutet regained consistency, also taking advantage of the feverishness of his opponent, author of a double fault on his set point.
But Ruud then managed to regain control of the match by seizing the Frenchman's service to lead 3-1, not without immediately having to erase two break points.
An advantage that he knew how to keep solidly afterwards.
The 23-year-old Norwegian, who reaches the quarters for the first time at Flushing Meadows, will face the Italian Matteo Berrettini (14th), won 3-6, 7-6 (7/2), 6-3, 4-6 , 6-2 in a big showdown against the Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (39th).
© 2022 AFP