A late change of opponent failed to stop Holger Rune from winning his opening match at the Canadian Masters in Montreal.
Rune, who is seeded 13th in the draw, defeated Spanish veteran Roberto Bautista Agut 6-3, 2-6, 6-2, who entered the main draw as a lucky loser. The Dane was scheduled to take on Milos Raonic in the first round before he withdrew from the tournament due to a shoulder injury. He has now won his opening match at 13 out of 15 tournaments contested so far this season.
“It was a challenge for sure,” atptour.com quoted Rune as saying. “It’s never easy coming back after a little break — not the longest break, but for me, I’m very young and luckily I haven’t been injured much. It was difficult but I think I managed to find the rhythm quickly. I didn’t manage to sustain it in the second set. He played good, was feeling free. Itwas kind of an extra chance that he got to play a match. Happy that I could get through.”
The 21-year-old is playing for the first time since pulling out of the Olympic Games due to a wrist injury. Against Agut, he hit 39 winners and won 74% of his first service points. So far this year, he has achieved a win-loss record of 28-15.
Another player through to the second round is Kei Nishikori, who defeated 19-year-old Alex Michelsen 3-6, 7-5, 6-4. Thevictory is the first Nishikori has achieved at a Masters 1000 event since the 2021 BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells. After missing large chunks of the Tour due to injury, the former US Open finalist is currently ranked 576th in PIF ATP rankings.
“It means a lot, especially the way I played in the third set,” the Japanese player said, according to ATPTour.com. “First and second set, many ups and downs and I was missing a lot of balls. Third set, I was playing pretty good tennis I think, good defence and when I needed to, I was having good movement and playing aggressive. It was working really well.”
Nishikori has set himself up with a tough showdown against Stefanos Tsitsipas who had a bye in the first round. Tsitsipas recently reached the quarter-finals of the Olympic Games before losing to Novak Djokovic who went on to win gold.
Finally, Frances Tiafoe was knocked out of the tournament by Chile’s Alejandro Tabilo. The American was broken five times during his 6-4, 6-2, loss to Tabilo who is currently ranked six places higher than him at 21st in the world.
