To get to the biggest final of his career, Frances Tiafoe defeated Danish 15th seed Holger Rune 4-6, 6-1, 7-6(4).
After serving out the first set after Rune took the lone break to lead 5–4, Tiafoe stormed through the second stanza in 25 minutes to force a decider.
The Dane jumped out to an early 5-2 lead, but Tiafoe responded with a routine break to love and two match points saved on his serve to move the score to 5-5. The players continued to a tiebreak, which was terminated by a long shot from Rune. Tiafoe moved up to No. 20 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings after his win.
Tiafoe said in his on-court interview: “Crazy, crazy. That last set was nuts. It got pretty breezy there at the end so we were kind of just playing the percentages. But yeah, I got really lucky there. I had a couple of net cords, but I also battled. I competed really hard and put myself in position.”
Tiafoe in Cincinnati, ranking, and results in 2024
Currently the world no.27, Tiafoe has an overall 24-19 win-loss record in 2024. Frances is now having a run in Cincinnati where he ousted the world no.53 Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 6-3 7-6(6), the world no.18 Lorenzo Musetti 6-3 6-2, the world no.35 Jiri Lehecka 6-4 6-7(10) 7-6(5), the world no.7 Hubert Hurkacz 6-3 ret. and the world no.16 Holger Rune 4-6 6-1 7-6(4).
Frances Tiafoe will compete against the world no.11 Stefanos Tsitsipas in the Round Robin. Their actual head to head record is 4-3 for Tsitsipas.
Tiafoe was the finalist in Houston (US Men’s Clay Court Championship).
The American won 4 titles in his career: 2 on hard courts, 1 on clay courts and 1 on grass courts. (See the list of his titles)
Holger Rune in 2024
At the moment ranked no.16, Rune played his last match on the 18th of August when he was defeated by world no.27 Francis Tiafoe 4-6 6-1 7-6(4) in the semifinal in Cincinnati (draw).
At present, during this year the Dane has achieved a 33-17 match record. Holger Rune’s best performance of the present year was reaching the final in Brisbane.
Holger Rune will come up against the world no.288 Giovanni Fonio in the quarter. In the past, they have never competed against each other until now in top competitions.
Holger was the runner-up in Brisbane (Brisbane International).
Holger won 4 titles in his career: 2 on clay courts and 2 on indoor courts. (See the list of his titles)
Frances Tiafoe and Holger Rune squared off just once. The head to head is 1-0 for Tiafoe. When they played, Frances Tiafoe won 4-6 6-1 7-6(4) in the semifinal in Cincinnati (Western & Southern Open) on the 18th of August 2024.
In the following video you can watch the highlights.
Frances Tiafoe and Holger Rune |
| Embed from Getty Images |