Holger Rune's disastrous run of form continues with early Shanghai Masters exit
Holger Rune's tough spell took a turn for the worse with a convincing loss to Brandon Nakashima in the second round of the Shanghai Masters.
Holger Rune.Since reaching the quarter-finals of Wimbledon, the Dane, who had a first-round bye, has now lost six of his seven matches and won only two games against American Nakashima, crashing to a 6-0 6-2 loss.
It is the fewest games won by a top-10 player against an opponent ranked outside the top 100 at an ATP Masters 1000 event since the format began in 1990.
Rune was far from the only seeded casualty on a day of upsets, with Roman Safiullin following up his victory over Andy Murray by defeating ninth seed Alexander Zverev 6-3 6-1.
Alex De Minaur was beaten 6-3 7-5 by Fabian Marozsan while Marton Fucsovics made it a Hungarian double with a 7-6 (3) 4-6 6-3 win over struggling 14th seed Felix Auger-Aliassime.
Casper Ruud, Ben Shelton and Hubert Hurkacz did make it through while Zhang Zhizhen became the first Chinese player ever to reach the third round of the event with a 4-6 6-3 6-4 win over Tomas Martin Etcheverry.
"I'm very happy of course," said Ruud, who powered to a 7-5, 6-0 victory over Yoshihito Nishioka . "Yoshihito came back in a tough, long first set. These things can happen. Whoever wins a first set like this will feel motivated to keep going in the second.
"I know the feeling myself. You feel like you worked hard for an hour just to lose the set and it feels like you have to climb a mountain to turn the match around. Maybe that's what happened. I got a great start in the second and I just kept it going."
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