Holger Rune has made a fashion statement in Monte Carlo. Can he make one with his racquet, against Jannik Sinner?

Singles play on Court des Princes, the second show court in Monte Carlo, is over for another year. This intimate arena on the side of a cliff hosts just a few dozen ATP matches each season, but it makes the most of what it gets.

The next-to-last of the singles contests for 2024 was played by Holger Rune and Grigor Dimitrov on Thursday afternoon. Together with a setting sun and its golden-hour light, they helped bring down the curtain in suitably theatrical style.

The Dane and the Bulgarian slugged and sprinted and staggered and occasionally slipped and fell for three hours and 30 minutes. Two of the three sets went to tiebreakers. Rune hit 36 winners, Dimitrov 35. Dimitrov won 38 points at net, Rune 32. Dimitrov won more points (127 to 125), broke serve two more times than Rune, had set points in all three sets, and reached match point twice. But it was Rune who walked away with both tiebreakers, and the match, 7-6 (9), 3-6, 7-6 (2).

This wasn’t even their first rodeo of the day. Rune and Dimitrov each had to finish their previous matches in the morning, after a rain delay on Wednesday.

“It was pretty brutal,” said Rune, who played five sets on the day.

The capacity audience, jammed just a few feet from the court, was properly appreciative of their efforts, and helped keep both men afloat mentally. One group chanted “Gree-gor! Gree-gor! Gree-gor!” in a military-style cadence. Another group gave Rune the Spanish soccer treatment. “O-lay, o-lay, o-lay, o-lay, Rune-ay, Rune-ay,” they sang, presumably pleased with the fortuitous rhyme.

They roared when Dimitrov finished off a long point with a cheeky drop-shot overhead. They roared when Rune saved a match point with an all-or-nothing forehand bullet. They helped pick Dimitrov up as he shuffled around, exhausted between points, barely able to stay on his feet. They helped pick Rune up when he really couldn’t stay on his feet after a wild rally, and landed hard on his right wrist.

“The crowd was on fire,” Rune said.

These two tend to get entangled in see-saw marathons on a regular basis, and each has won and lost his share of them. Dimitrov has improved his winning percentage over the past year, a time when he has solidified his game at 32, and returned to the Top 10. When he bounced back from a close loss in the first-set tiebreaker, won the second 6-3, and made it to match point in the third, it looked like the new Grigor, the gritty Grigor, would prevail.

But Rune, for all of his sometimes-wild swings in form, does like a fight, and he responded to this one. After saving those two match points with maximum aggression, he kept it up in the deciding tiebreaker. He made virtually all of his first serves, and hit six winners to run away from his older opponent at the finish line.

“To be able to share the court after watching him for so many years is a cool feeling,” Rune said of Dimitrov.

Rune began this tournament by making a statement—with his ultra-loud, all-yellow Nike kit. Not everyone can pull that off. Can he make another, even-bolder statement with his racquet, when he faces Jannik Sinner on Friday, less than 24 hours after this win?

“He’s for sure the favorite,” Rune concedes, before reminding us that, “I have the winning record 2-1.”

“It’s gonna be a big challenge, especially after today.”