Felix Auger-Aliassime continued winning at the 2023 Swiss Indoors in Basel, besting Holger Rune to secure his first ATP final in a year at the event where he won the trophy last year.
Holger Rune seemingly can't defeat Felix Auger-Aliassime in Basel. In fairness, he hasn't defeated many people in the past three months either, but for some reason, things just never work out in Basel.
They played in the final last year, and the Canadian easily won. They played this year in the semi-final, and the Canadian again easily won. It wasn't a good match from Rune, who seemed to be in improving form recently.
Despite finding a solid level here and winning a couple of matches, this isn't close to what he generally brings to the table. The opening set started with an early break, and it really did change the outcome of the match.
Auger-Alissime is a player for whom confidence matters a lot, and getting off to a great start like that mattered. Rune is similar, but he has had a few notable comebacks in his career.
Today wasn't one of those days, as the Canadian allowed him very little on serve despite not serving all that great. It was a great source of frustration for Rune, whose body language was not good.
6-3 was the final score in the first set. The second set was again the same story. Despite taking a 30-0 lead in the opening game, Rune lost the next three points to give Auger-Aliassime a break and then committed a double fault.
As you can imagine, he wasn't quite happy about that, and it impacted his play. He wasn't really in the match, barely holding against the Canadian who was in the zone.
Auger-Aliassime ultimately broke him once more to take a 5-2 lead and then added insult to injury by calmly saving two break points in the final game of the match. A 6-3 6-2 win for the Canadian who will play his first final since playing one in the same arena 12 months ago.
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