Shock for Rune as Shevchenko claims ‘biggest win’

Rising star Holger Rune suffered a shock defeat on Thursday to Alexander Shevchenko in the Rotterdam Open second round, with the Kazakh hailing the “biggest win” of his career to date.

The 23-year-old world number 57 claimed only his second victory against a top-10 player to set up a quarterfinal clash against Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov.

In a topsy-turvy match, Shevchenko won a tight first set 6-4 before capitulating 6-1 in the second. The deciding set went on serve until 4-3 before the Kazakh broke the Rune serve.

Shevchenko then held serve to win the match and afterwards told reporters that he considered this a breakthrough win against the world No 7 and third seed.