He had led the final-set tiebreak 5-1. Then Halys clubbed four points in a row to level it, Rune’s first tour win in more than a year suddenly hanging on two points. The Frenchman handed one back with a double fault, and Holger Rune punched the next one away with a half-volley from the forecourt.

That was how Rune, ranked 1,202 in the world at the start of the week, won a match on the ATP Tour for the first time in 373 days.

The 6-4, 6-7(2), 7-6(5) win over Halys at the Swiss Indoors Basel took two hours and 39 minutes and required him to absorb 32 aces from the big-serving Frenchman while saving all five break points he faced.

From Stockholm to Stockholm, and back

Rune’s previous ATP Tour win had come in Stockholm in October 2025, in the round before the injury that reshaped his career. In the semifinal there, against Ugo Humbert, he ruptured his left Achilles tendon on October 18 and underwent surgery. He did not play another tour match for 11 months.

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The comeback has been slow. He returned in September via the Davis Cup, where he beat Iliyan Radulov and Grigor Dimitrov, before being thrown back onto the main tour. In Tokyo he lost 6-3, 6-1 to Kyrian Jacquet. In Shanghai, Daniel Altmaier beat him in three sets. Basel was his third tour-level event since the surgery, and the first in which he produced a win on the big stage.

The ranking tells the same story in a different register. Rune has been as high as world No. 4. The 50 ATP points from his Basel first-round win moved him up 591 places, to No. 611.

A venue that has been kind to him

If any ATP 500 was likely to deliver his first win back, this was the one. Rune’s record at St. Jakobshalle is now 11-3, with a 2022 final appearance and semifinal runs in 2023 and 2024.

Ruud recovers from a set down

Elsewhere in the top half of the draw, Casper Ruud needed three sets to see off Swiss wild card Dominic Stricker, winning 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 in one hour and 53 minutes after dropping the opener. Nuno Borges also advanced, dismissing Mika Brunold 6-3, 6-1 in 61 minutes.

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Rune’s reward is a last-16 match against either 10th seed Hubert Hurkacz or Zizou Bergs, with €37,790 already in the bank from this round.

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