French Open 2025: Rune wins a 'brutal match' against French rival Halys

Paris: The clock on Court Philippe Chatrier was closing in on two hours and 40 minutes. Holger Rune , the tenth seed, was serving to stay in the French Open third-round clash against home hope Quentin Halys . The near full-house waded into the 10th game of the fourth set, exercising their vocal cords when the 28-year-old Halys won the third point of the game (15-30), putting him within two points of victory. But the 22-year-old Rune squared his shoulders and looked up into the blue sky before he thundered down a 207 kmph ace to silence the fandom.

The Dane won nine of the last eleven games to score a 4-6, 6-2, 5-7, 7-5, 6-2 win in three hours and 20 minutes to move into the fourth round. Rune’s control on the court reflected in the stats — he clocked 66 winners and won 72 per cent of points at the net.

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The Dane, born in Gentofte in the northern suburb of Copenhagen, is playing his fourth Roland Garros and has compiled a consistent run on the red clay, having made the fourth round or better in every outing. Next up for the world No. 10 is the eighth-seeded Italian Lorenzo Musetti, whom he leads 2-0 in head-to-head clashes.

“It was a brutal match. He played really well. Massive respect to him. He really put on a fight,” Rune said in his on-court interview, having survived the Frenchman, home fans, and the change in weather with the sun out in all its glory on Friday. “I tried to change some things. First set did not go how I wanted it to. I had to put more spin on the ball because of the (weather) conditions. The player who took the opportunity to be aggressive was the player who won today.”


In keeping with the trend of the week, where crowd behaviour has been the talking point, Rune asked for a fan to be evicted from Chatrier in the later stages of the third set.

“I put my towel down in the box and the guy was yelling aggressively at me. He reached out for me,” said Rune, who seemed to be in an exchange with the fan seated in the front row. “I thought this was very strange, because I did not do anything against him and he should not interact with a player on the court — it’s a bit embarrassing.”


Rune complained to the supervisor, saying the fan made him uncomfortable and that he’d rather the man wasn’t in the stands. “They said they’d check the video and if it was true, they would get him away. I guess they checked and I didn’t see him for the rest of the match,” the Dane said.

World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka had problems adjusting to the weather in her third-round encounter against Serbian Olga Danilovic, playing in vastly different conditions than she did her second-round match two days ago. Sabalenka won 6-2, 6-3 in 81 minutes. She next plays 23-year-old Amanda Anisimova in the fourth round — the American leads their head-to-head 5-2.