Holger Rune was beaten by Casper Ruud in the quarter-final of Roland Garros and he refused to blame the loss on fatigue.
Outside of one set, Rune didn't really play a great match as he was beaten by Casper Ruud pretty easily. The first two sets in particular featured a very sluggish Rune who couldn't serve properly and generally looked rather out of it physically. He wasn't moving very well and had frequently confused looks toward his box.
The 3rd set was the one where he discovered some juice taking an easy break and then holding it for the rest of the match but ultimately he didn't have enough. It was somewhat predictable as the finish against Cerundolo saw him breathe heavily and look very tired most of the time. The start to this particularly was very uncharacteristic for him. No energy which is very atypical for Rune.
Not at all. I was fine physically. No excuse.I just didn't play my level. It's tough, but sometimes it's like this, and you have to learn from it, come back stronger.We have another Grand Slam around the corner, so I hope to be stronger there. I'm happy that the clay season is over now. I'm ready to move on. Yeah, just focused on the grass now.
Rune completely dismissed any sort of talk about being fatigued but that's hardly a surprise. Rune generally dismisses talks whether's about his perceived bad boy image or talks of injury or something else.
His level wasn't particularly bad, as he had more winners than Ruud and not some egregious amount of unforced errors either. He was just very late in most rallies allowing Ruud to push him around the court even more which forced him to overhit in a way to compensate. Sometimes it worked but most of the time he just found himself even more drained after rallies.
Another thing that was spotted by eagle-eyed fans and journalists was him holding his back a few times during the match. He was asked about dealing with some back issues which might have contributed to the double faults however he dismissed it again.
I have constant some problems, but it wasn't anything that would have -- if I didn't feel it, it wouldn't have changed the match. So it's not something that I can use as an excuse. He was just better than me today, so I have to take it and move on and try to improve. Of course, I'm going to try to recover first physically with the issues I have. I played a lot, as I said in the past, so, of course, my body is feeling it. I feel fresh today, honestly, so that's not the case.
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