(Rome) The Danish Holger Rune, seeded N.7, qualified for the final of the Masters 1000 in Rome on Saturday by winning the Scandinavian duel against the Norwegian Casper Ruud (N.4) 6-7 (2/7 ), 6-4, 6-2.

Rune overturned a badly boarded match to clinch his first victory against the Norwegian, after four defeats in as many confrontations. He will be opposed in the final on Sunday to the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas (N.5), finalist last year, or the Russian Daniil Medvedev (N.3), who face each other in the afternoon.

Eight days before the start of Roland-Garros, the young Dane (20), who fell defending champion Novak Djokovic in the quarter-finals, confirms his meteoric rise.

He will play in Rome his third final in four tournaments on ocher this season, after the Masters 1000 in Monte-Carlo (defeat against Andrey Rublev) and the ATP 250 in Munich (victory against Botic van de Zandschulp, his fourth title ).

Under a fine Roman rain, Ruud was able to control the ardor of Rune for a set and a half, not conceding the slightest break point thanks to a first ball at the rendezvous and running at full speed to pick the many drop shots attempted by the Dane .

At this rate, the finalist of the last Roland-Garros already seemed to have a foot in the final when he broke in the second set to lead 4-2, after winning the first set thanks to a perfectly controlled decisive game.

But this is when Rune chose to step up his game, after having his right shoulder massaged for a few minutes — a break that did him the greatest good.

“At that point, I said to myself that I had nothing to lose, that it was probably my last set here, that we had to play free, and that’s what I did,” said told Rune after the game.

The explosive Dane finally had a break point, his first of the match, which he did not miss to come back to 4-4. Another match then began between a totally revived and aggressive Rune and a Ruud no longer finding the angles, overtaken by the fear of losing after having already failed twice in the semi-finals in Rome, in 2020 and 2022.

Tornado Rune followed up in a one-way third set to complete their qualification in 2:43, rushing to the final in Rome for their first appearance in the main draw.