By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Saturday July 8, 2023
Holger Rune had never won a Wimbledon match prior to 2023, but the Dane is off and running in style at SW19 this year as he continues to prove himself on all surfaces and against all comers.
On Court No.3 on Saturday the foe was Spain’s Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, a former Boys’ champion at Wimbledon and one of the most electrifying talents on the tour today.
Credit the 31st-seeded Spaniard, who controlled the run of play for much of the match and had his chances to notch the upset over the sixth-seeded Dane, for all but one head-scratching shot at 8-8 in the match tiebreak.
Unfortunately for Davidovich Fokina, who led two sets to one at one point and had two match points in the fifth with Rune serving at 4-5, 15-40, his decision to attempt an underarm serve at 8-8 in the match tiebreak will be remembered as one of the most ill-timed underhanded serves off all-time.
Here’s the aforementioned, in all it’s glory…
Rune quickly raced to the net to hit a clean return winner, then clinched his victory on the next point much to the surprise of a packed stadium full of stunned spectators.
“I was not expecting it for sure,” Rune said of the Spaniard's trickery after the match. “Actually it was nice because he was serving unbelievable, so I was like ‘OK, here’s a chance to get a match point.’”
Rune’s words accentuate the error of Davidovich Fokina’s ways. The 24-year-old Spaniard saved the only break point he faced in the final set, and made 77 percent of his first serves in the stanza, winning 26 of 36 of them. The odds were in his favor if he had played it conventionally – instead he panicked and shifted the odds in Rune’s favor, and the rest is history.
In his post-match interview, Rune admitted that the underarm serve did put pressure on him as well. How would he have recovered if he hadn't pegged the winner and fell behind instead? We'll never know.
"It's pressure, because imagine I missed that one," he said. "That would feel awful. So it was good and bad. Luckily I stayed clutch in important moments and managed to win."
When pressed about whether or not he would employ a similar tactic if it was him serving at 8-8, Rune admitted that he isn't that daring.
"I wouldn't do it," he said. "But again, every player has a different style. You know, if he made it, it would have been the right shot. It's tough to say."
Rune finished with 61 winners to 46 for Davidovich Fokina, and avenged a three-set loss to the Spaniard on the Madrid clay earlier this season.
It's not the first time Rune has saved match points in a big match this year. He saved a quartet of them this spring in Munich, as he defeated Botic Van de Zandschulp in the final. A Grand Slam season that started with heartbreak (Rune squandered two match points to Andrey Rublev in the match tiebreak of his fourth-round encounter with the Russian at the Australian Open) is now giving way to jubilation for the rising 20 year old.
He will face either Frances Tiafoe or Grigor Dimitrov in the round of 16.