Tennis - French Open - Roland Garros, Paris, France - May 30, 2025 Denmark's Holger Rune in action during his third round match against France's Quentin Halys REUTERS/Lisi Niesner
PARIS (Reuters) -World number 10 Holger Rune had to dig deep before gritting out a 4-6 6-2 5-7 7-5 6-2 marathon victory over France's unseeded Quentin Halys at the French Open on Friday to book his spot in the fourth round.
The Dane had beaten Halys, ranked 52nd in the world, in another five-set thriller at last year's Wimbledon despite trailing by two sets, and it would not be much different this time.
Rune, who won the Barcelona Open on clay in April to confirm his status as a title contender in Paris, found it hard going from the start against the big-serving Halys.
"It was a brutal match. He played really well. Massive respect to him. He really put on a fight," Rune said in a post-match interview.
"I tried to change some things. First set did not go how I wanted to. I had to put more spin on the ball because of the (weather) conditions. The player who took the opportunities to be aggressive was the player who won today."
Neither managed to earn a single break point until Halys broke his opponent at 5-4, snatching the first set with a sizzling passing forehand down the line.
A Halys double fault, however, at 1-1 in the second gave Rune his own first break.
The Dane then hit the shot of the match when he chased down a second consecutive drop shot from Halys and flicked it in around the net post, before breaking him again a little later to level.
The pair traded breaks midway through the set before Halys got the better of Rune's serve again, to close out the third set.
Rune looked to have bounced back when he broke Halys to love to go 2-1 up but the Frenchman returned the favour in the very next game to level in what was turning into a seesawing clash.
Fired on by a bulging home crowd that gradually trickled into the Philippe Chatrier stadium as the match dragged into the afternoon, Halys was two points away from victory when he led 5-4 and 15-30 on Rune's serve.
But the 22-year-old kept his composure to force a decider.
A break at 2-1 put the world number 10 back in the driving seat and he never looked back, winning the last three games on the trot to book a fourth round clash with Italy's eighth-seed Lorenzo Musetti.
(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann; editing by Giles Elgood)
