After snapping his 7-match losing streak in Beijing, Holger Rune is back in the loss column after losing to Grigor Dimitrov.
Holger Rune declared before the China Open that he was finally healthy and ready to play again. It was good news because his performances in the past few weeks have been far from his best. His last win came at Wimbledon, and since then, he accumulated 7 straight losses, and quite a few were against players he should regularly beat.
He returned to the win column by beating Felix Auger-Aliassime in a strange match where neither player showed a really high level. Rune looked okay but not that great which makes this loss to Dimitrov not shocking.
The match was a pretty decent one from both sides, but it was evident that Rune was nowhere near his best tennis. He opened the match by losing his serve and then lost it again for the 0-4 deficit. He would bring back one of those breaks but couldn't do much more after that as Dimitrov broke once more for the 6-3 finish.
Rune played okay; he served at a solid level and played okay but a level below Dimitrov, who pushed him easily in most rallies. The second set didn't bring anything different as Dimitrov once again looked very at ease in most rallies.
Rune also held his serve comfortably but failed to create too much pressure. The match was trending to a tiebreak where the Bulgarian likely would have won, but he applied heavy pressure in the final game of the match and got the decisive break by converting the third match point.
The final score was 6-3 7-5 for Dimitrov who moves on to play Jannik Sinner in the quarter-final. The Italian smashed Yoshihito Nishioka earlier today, 6-2 6-0. That's going to be a very good one.
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