Holger Rune is soaking up the ‘sunshine, smiles and good tennis’ in Brisbane

James Richardson 05 Jan 2024 3:07 PM

Holger Rune celebrates a win.

There are few players on the ATP Tour right now enjoying themselves quite as much as Holger Rune.

Into the semi-finals of the Brisbane International, Rune is thrilled to be enjoying the Australian summer as much as he is with his game.

Rune’s home is still in the grips of an icy winter, and he was happy to hotfoot it to Australia.

After defeating James Duckworth 6-2 7-6(6) to advance to the semi-finals, Rune was all smiles.

“It’s great to be in Australia, it’s a nice time of the year to play tennis, to enjoy life,” said Rune.

Hometown hero Duckworth wouldn’t go down without a fight, but Rune showed his quality and ability in the clutch to secure passage to the last four by winning a second-set tiebreak.

After Rune had dominated the opening set, Duckworth tightened up his game on serve, and neither man would offer the other a break point across the second set, with the Queenslander eventually blinking first with an error in the tiebreak that gave the Dane a 5-4 lead.

Rune secured victory over Duckworth on his third match point and was relieved to avoid a third set.

“The second set was definitely harder,” commented the 20-year-old.

“He changed the strategy a little bit, so I had to adjust, but at the end, I was happy I was able to close it in two sets.”

The result sets up a last-four showdown with Russia’s Roman Safiulllin, who was a 7-6(4) 6-2 victor over Italy’s Matteo Arnaldi.

The world No 39 has enjoyed quite the week himself in Brisbane, kickin off his campaign with an upset of third seed Ben Shelton, and a three-set win over in-form Australian Alexei Popyrin which further underlined the threat he poses on a hard court.

Safiullin fired nine aces among his 20 winners and required precisely two hours to record the straight-sets win over Arnaldi.

Rune, meanwhile, is preparing for a first singles match against Safiullin although he did experience the 26-year-old’s hard-hitting style while teaming with Andy Murray in the men’s doubles.

“Andy and I, we played him in the first round of doubles here and he was serving bombs,” said Rune of Safiullin.

Rune feels that he has the tools and the game to down the powerful Russian but hedged his bets when estimating his chances.

“He’s playing great this tournament. One guy’s got to stop him and I’ll try,” Rune commented.