Holger Rune Retires From His First Match At 2025 Monte-Carlo Masters
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Holger Rune didn't finish his first match at the 2025 Monte-Carlo Masters, retiring against Nuno Borges in the second set.
Rune has played well in Monte Carlo in the past. The young Danish player reached the final in 2023, losing only to Andrey Rublev after beating Dominic Thiem, Daniil Medvedev, and Jannik Sinner.
Last year, Rune reached the quarter-finals at the Monte-Carlo Masters, but this time, Sinner beat him in a three-set battle. Defending the quarter-final points, the Dane certainly didn't lack any motivation this year.
However, his first-round match against Nuno Borges was far from ideal. Although the tenth seed started well and even had a break point at 2-2, he couldn't use his chance and soon fell behind 2-4.
Rune then couldn't convert another break point, while Borges used all of his chances to win the first set of the match 6-2. The Portuguese player was just ruthless when it mattered, using both break points that he had while saving both that he faced.
After the set, Rune called for a doctor, and it was clear that the 21-year-old felt unwell. It appeared that he was struggling with an illness, but he still made the decision to try and finish the match.
Early in the second set, the former finalist was broken once again, and after only 45 minutes of play, the scoreboard showed 6-2, 3-0. Rune probably didn't see any chance of coming back from that score while battling illness, which is why he retired from the match.
That meant Borges moved to the second round of the tournament, setting up a meeting with Pedro Martinez, who ousted Lorenzo Sonego in the first round of the ATP Masters 1000 event.
For Rune, this loss doesn't necessarily need to mean a fall down the rankings, even though he will lose 190 points compared to last year's edition. At the moment, he should be able to keep his World No. 12 position, but he missed out on a chance to return to the Top 10 and climb up to even the World No. 8 spot.
Players like Casper Ruud and Stefanos Tsitsipas are defending hundreds of points (having played the final last year), which gave Rune a great chance, but an illness stopped him.
Paradoxically, it wasn't the first time that Rune was stopped by an illness this year. He struggled with some kind of illness also in Rotterdam, and he then retired from his match in Acapulco because of the same reason.
