Holger Rune lost fairly early at the 2023 China Open but he refused to blame the loss on his previous injury declaring that he's good.
Rune dealt with a lot of problems in the previous weeks that prevented him from playing his best tennis. A back injury affected him during the US Open and Davis Cup, which he talked about after losing his seventh straight match.
The streak is gone thanks to the Dane beating Felix Auger-Aliassime a few weeks ago but he couldn't get a winning one started as Grigor Dimitrov stepped up. It wasn't a terrible performance from Rune, but it certainly wasn't very good.
He did play well as the match went on but couldn't quite find the extra push that he needed to turn around the match. It was disappointing but it was not due to his previous problem. He vehemently denied any kind of physical issue after the loss.
No, it's not because of that I lost. I felt sore after the first match because it's been a while since I played more than one match or two matches. Yeah, it's a little tough on the body. It sounds ridiculous because I only played one match before that, had one day off in between. But that's how it is. My body's feeling healthy. Just soreness. That's a good feeling of your body, yeah.
It's true he hasn't played in a while and certainly needs more matches to find his best tennis, but he also didn't look too confident either. It will come because a seven-match losing streak is not easy to forget, even if it comes because of physical issues.
A chance to redeem himself will come in a few days at the Shanghai Masters, where he'll play the winner of the match between Brandon Nakashima and Bernabe Zapata Miralles.
