After being forced to withdraw with stomach pain from the Monte Carlo Masters, Holger Rune was back to his best, when he delivered an excellent performance on Friday against second seed Casper Ruud, who was beaten 6-4, 6-2.
Ruud, who was the defending champion in the tournament, has been a nightmare opponent for Rune throughout his career as the Dane went into the match having lost six out of seven encounters against the Norwegian but on Friday afternoon Rune looked in scintillating form against Ruud.
Rune got off to a great start, broke Ruud's serve twice and quickly took a 4-0 lead even though the lead was quite deceiving as the games were close but Rune was far the better player during decisive points.
Casper Ruud gradually recovered from his disastrous start and broke Rune's serve to reduce the gap to 3-4. Rune, however, never allowed his Scandinavian rival to get too close as the Dane tightned his grip on the game by closing the first set in ruthless fashion with a 6-4 scoreline.
Rune began the second set where he left off the first as he broke Ruud's serve straight away through powerful play from the baseline mixed up by deadly dropshots.
The Norwegian looked visibly deflated and gradually seemed to lose faith that he would be able to turn the game around as Rune broke his serve again to take a comfortable 5-1 lead.
Ruud managed to reduce the gap to 2-5, but despite falling behind 0-30 in the following game, Rune had no intentions of handing Ruud a lifeline and won four successive points to close out the match.
In the semi-finals, Rune is set to face world number 27, the Russian Karen Khachanov, who won his match against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. This will be the first time the two players have played against each other.