Holger Rune barely avoided losing to Miomir Kecmanovic for the second time in 7 days, but he did as he moved on to the next round of the 2023 Swiss Indoors in Basel.
Holger Rune has not been having a very good time on the tennis courts lately. Despite claims that he's feeling more confident after some good practices recently, Rune simply can't figure things out on the court.
Yes, he snapped his losing streak against Kecmanovic, but this was far from a performance that should make you feel good if you are a Rune fan. He was 1-10 in his last 11 matches before this one, and that's just not good enough for a player of his level.
He's yet to win back-to-back matches since Wimbledon, but he'll get a rare chance at the ATP 500 event in Basel after finally winning again. For a good part of the match, Rune was even worse than last week, but he found some inspiration late in the second set.
Kecmanovic smashed Rune in the opening set 6-1 thanks to solid play from the baseline, outhitting the Dane with 11 winners. The Serbian was amazing. Let's not pretend that he didn't play great, but the Dane couldn't counter it.
Rune certainly wanted to take the ball out of Kecmanovic's racquet, but that didn't happen in the first set. In fairness, it didn't happen in the second set either, at least not at the start, as he did step up when he lost his serve.
Kecmanovic was up 4-3 and had a 40-15 advantage against Rune, who looked done. The Dane then mounted a spectacular push in that game to break back and then outplayed Kecmanovic to win the second set 7-5.
The Serbian is known to lose his level from time to time, which happened here. Rune just needed to insert a bit of doubt in the Serbian, and he got it done by winning the second set.
The final set was a no contest really, as Rune was now fully in control, hitting marvelously from the baseline. He would cruise towards the finish line to keep the ATP Finals dream alive. The final score was 1-6 7-5 6-3 for the Dane behind 32 winners and only 15 unforced errors.
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