LONDON: Danish sixth seed Holger Rune reached the Wimbledon second round for the first time with a 7-6 (7/4), 6-3, 6-2 win against British wildcard George Loffhagen on Wednesday.
After a rain delay that forced the first round tie to be postponed following the first set on Tuesday, Rune was finally able to finish off Loffhagen 24 hours later on Court Three.
The 20-year-old will play Italian qualifier Matteo Arnaldi or Spain's Roberto Carballes Baena for a place in the last 32.
Rune is rated as a rising star after beating Novak Djokovic in the Paris Masters final in November before defeating the 23-time Grand Slam champion again in Rome this year.
He reached the French Open quarter-finals for a second successive year in June and is aiming to add to his burgeoning reputation at Wimbledon.
Rune lost to unseeded Marcos Giron in the first round in his Wimbledon debut last year, but he easily avoided another premature exit against Loffhagen.
Ranked 371st in the world, Loffhagen was making his first ever main draw appearance at a Grand Slam
The 22-year-old quit tennis in 2021 but after studying and working in a London pub, he felt able to return to tennis with new-found maturity.
Rewarded with a Wimbledon wildcard, Loffhagen's bid for a fairytale victory against the highly-rated Rune was dashed when the match resumed on Wednesday.
A finalist on clay in Monte Carlo and Rome this year, Rune had looked a little nervous on grass when he narrowly survived a tense first set tie-break on Tuesday.
But he took complete control of the next two sets to reach the second round in emphatic fashion.
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