Rune battles Monfils to advance to Cincinnati quarters | ATP Tour

Cincinnati

Rune battles Monfils to advance to Cincinnati quarterfinals

August 17, 2024

Holger Rune is always a tough opponent to face and the Dane held his nerve in a nail-biting third set on Friday to beat Gael Monfils 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 and advance to the Cincinnati Open quarter-finals.

Rune, seeded 15th, is thus the first Dane to reach the quarter-finals in the history of the tournament. “It took me a bit of patience,” Rune said with a smile. “I wasn’t fully on top in the first set. I was serving really well, I had to get used to the conditions a bit. He was coming off an incredible win against Alcaraz earlier, so obviously he was very confident. I had to find my rhythm.”

The match had all kinds of spices: Monfils came out on top, riding the momentum of his win over second seed Carlos Alcaraz in a match hampered by rain. But Rune managed to buck the trend and seize opportunities to move ahead, converting 25 of his 33 points at the net over the two hours and 14 minutes of play.

“I changed my tactics a bit from the beginning of the second set and tried to keep it up throughout the match, and it seemed to work,” Rune said.

In the first service game of the final set, 21-year-old Rune was down 0/40 but eventually held serve after nearly nine minutes, dashing the Frenchman’s hopes of becoming the tournament’s oldest quarter-finalist. He then broke Monfils and never looked back.

Rune, seeking his second ATP Masters 1000 trophy, saved seven of the eight break points he faced, according to Infosys ATP Stats, to win his first Lexus ATP Head2Head match against Monfils. As the match progressed, the 37-year-old Monfils appeared to fade physically, but not without flashes of his finishing prowess to the roars of a packed Centre Court.

In the quarter-finals of an ATP Masters 1000 for the third time this season (Indian Wells, Monte Carlo), Rune will face in-form Briton Jack Draper, who beat Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime by a narrow 5-7 6-4 6-4 scoreline.