Seventh seed Holger Rune staged a dramatic comeback Wednesday, when he saved a match point to oust home favourite Taylor Fritz 2-6, 7-6(2), 6-3 and reach his fifth ATP Masters 1000 quarter-final at the BNP Paribas Open.
"It was crazy. Really just stayed in the moment, kept fighting," Rune said in his on-court interview. "Tried to play from point to point and I thought I managed to raise my level quite amazingly at the end of the second set."
The Dane overcame a slow start in the first set, committing 15 unforced errors while Fritz was dictating with first-strike tennis and claimed 16 of the final 19 points in the opener.
Just 85 minutes into his second Lexus ATP Head2Head contest against Fritz, Rune stared down a match point during a seven-minute service game at 4-5 in the second set. But Fritz missed a backhand return on Rune’s second serve at 30/40 that gave the 20-year-old new life.
Rune later forced a second-set tie-break and gained control of the match by playing closer to the baseline. He looked to attack the American's second serve, earning his lone break in the fourth game of the decider, which was the first service game Fritz lost all week.
The World No. 7 in the PIF ATP Rankings brought the Indian Wells crowd alive with his energy and shotmaking as he levelled his Lexus ATP Head2Head series with Fritz at 1-1.
"He was controlling it from the first set and a long time of the second set as well. I'm just happy that I kept fighting and kept believing that I was going to find my rhythm at some point," said Rune, who hit 29 winners.
Rune will next meet fourth seed and last year’s finalist Daniil Medvedev in the last eight, which will mark the Dane's first Masters 1000 quarter-final appearance outside of Europe. The pair split their first two meetings, which both were on clay.
"I'm a player that's going to attack. I don't care who I play, I'm going to attack anyways," Rune said. "Against Daniil, it's a completely different match from today. I think the only similarity [Fritz and Medvedev] have is the big serve, otherwise they are two different players."
A four-time tour-level titlist, Rune is 13-5 this season. Prior to this week, his best showing at Indian Wells was a third-round run last year.
Fritz, who won the BNP Paribas Open title in 2022, was aiming for his fourth consecutive quarter-final at his home tournament.
© Copyright 1994 - 2024 ATP Tour, Inc. All Rights Reserved. No part of this site may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way or by any means (including photocopying, recording or storing it in any medium by electronic means), without the written permission of ATP Tour, Inc.. Terms & Conditions | Privacy | Modern Slavery Statement | Feedback | Cookies
