Holger Rune might be fully healthy, but the Danish player is not playing well at all, losing to Brandon Nakashima at the 2023 Shanghai Masters.
The young Dane opened the match second-round match badly and he seemingly never really consolidated. Much of what went wrong for him in this match is his own doing because he really didn't help himself most of the time, but his opponent deserves credit.
Nakashima is a very solid player with a style that is tailor-made for the conditions in Shanghai. He played a pretty flawless match, though Rune greatly helped him. The Dane lost his serve in the match's first game, which gave Nakashima plenty of momentum.
It's been a really poor time for Rune lately, with several disappointing performances, which he blamed on back issues. Well, he's healthy now, but poor play persists still, and it's really hard to pinpoint what is wrong. He doesn't have confidence in his play, which is evident by how much he misses, but he's also playing quite nervously.
The one good chance he had in this match was snatched from him due to an umpire mistake who called a good forehand wide and that enraged him even further. He argued with the umpire alleging that the umpire was paid to do that which shows how frustrated he was with it.
Ultimately, he couldn't really calm down properly and melted away with more and more mistakes, which the ever-solid Nakashima used to ice the match. 6-0, 6-2 was the final score for Nakashima, who needed 66 minutes to get the match done.
A lone win for Rune against Felix Auger-Aliassime in China is the only saving grace, really. Injury or not, being 1-9 in his last ten matches on the ATP Tour is far from good. It's not ideal, as his Paris Masters title challenge is looming.
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