Holger Rune needed two days and three sets to progress at the 2024 Monte-Carlo Masters, but he finally did so by beating Sumit Nagal.
So far, it's been a very interesting Monte-Carlo Masters, especially for players who did well last year. Daniil Medvedev played in the semi-final last year, and he's out of the tournament already.
Andrey Rublev won the event, and he's out as well, though the other finalist is still in the draw. It's Rune who was games away from winning last year's event, but it didn't work out.
He came back this year with hopes of going all the way, and for the most part, he is looking like a contender so far. He's through to the next round after a hard-fought win over Nagal.
The match started on Wednesday but was abandoned due to rain and had to be finished on Thursday. Rune outplayed the Indian player on Wednesday, taking the opening set behind some really solid play.
He served better and played better to win the opening set. When the match was abandoned, the score was 2-1 for the 20-year-old, which was unfortunate. He had just broken and looked well on his way to an easy finish.
That didn't happen, as Nagal broke immediately upon returning and kept playing really well for the rest of the set. He would eventually even win the second set 6-3, largely thanks to the Dane's very erratic and nervous play.
Rune totaled 11 unforced errors in that set, including two doubles faults, and all of that was a result of bad serving. He hit his first serve only 45 % of the time, and that complicated things a lot.
Rune opened the third set with an early break but gave it back pretty quickly. He would, however, break once more for the 5-2 lead and finally finish things off after a lot of complications.
It was hard-fought win, but ultimately, he was able to prevail. Rune won the match 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 and in the next round, he will play Grigor Dimitrov, in a match that will be played after Alexander Zverev and Stefanos Tsitsipas finish their match.