Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Wednesday, September 27, 2024
Holger Rune says his cranky back has calmed down.
Now, Rune is aiming to make some noise in his Beijing comeback.
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The fourth-ranked Rune put together a strong early summer run reaching Rome finals, Roland Garros quarterfinals, Queen's Club semifinals and Wimbledon quarterfinals.
However, Rune has not won a match since since his four-set Wimbledon over Grigor Dimitrov and shut it down after opening-round exits in Toronto, Cincinnati and the US Open.
Rune says he's ready to go for Beijing.
"I was struggling with back injury for a while now. I got it fixed," Rune told the media in Beijing. I played a lot of tournaments with a lot of pain in my back. But then I was like at the end, Okay, I got to stop and fix it, not come back to playing tournaments until I'm hundred percent.
"That's also why I'm here. I'm ready to go and I'm excited for what's to come."
What's to come is an opening-round showdown vs. Felix Auger-Aliassime, who is trying to bounce back from a horrid stretch and arrives in Beijing off a productive Laver Cup weekend before home fans in Vancouver.
"It's going to be I think a great match. He's a tough player," Rune said of Auger-Aliassime. "He's been doing really well, especially end of last year also. He's been consistent for many years now, in the top, and he's still super young. I'm going to have to play good. I'm going to have to put him under a lot of pressure because when he gets the time to play, he's very dangerous.
"I'm going to try to play on my terms and do everything I can to win."
Rune is hoping to regain his winning ways ahead of his Rolex Paris Masters title defense while targeting the ATP Finals in Turin.
"Definitely one of the goal is to be able to get into Turin, the Finals, at the end of the year," Rune said. "And yes, I mean, I have Paris to defend, but I'm most of all looking forward to come back because I have very good memories from last year. I played definitely my best tennis there.
"But yeah, again, I have good opportunities here in Beijing and Shanghai next week to do good so I can kind of relax a bit more - not relax, but not be like fully stressed for those tournaments, for points and stuff like this.
"Most of all I think you can't really control all of this. You can only control your effort on the court and how you are, how much you put into it."
Photo credit: Getty