Danish tennis star Holger Rune took a hard hit to the the head during his first game at the ATP Masters 1000 tournament Cincinnati Open against Roman Safiullin when a Russian serve hit the Dane in the face.
Safiullin closed out a game with his hard serve in the beginning of the match, and the Russian subsequently approached Holger Rune to apologize.
Rune, however, recovered, and the seventh-seeded Dane played his way through to the third round with a 7-5, 7-6 victory.
The Dane was seeded in the first round, and went into the match as favorite against Safiullin, who is No 80 in the world rankings.
The Dane had won the two previous meetings between the two players last year.
But Safiullin showed plenty of promise in the opening stages of Saturday's match, and he had the opportunity to go ahead 4-1 in the first set after breaking Rune's serve but the Dane immediately broke back and reduced the deficit to 2-3.
Hoger Rune then broke Safiullin again at 4-4, but then followingly failed to take advantage of two set points as the Russian restored parity.
However, Safiullin couldn't prevent Rune from breaking his serve again and the Dane then took advantage of his third set point with a forehand winner to win the first set.
In the second set, both players showed great stability in holding serve, so the set ultimately had to be decided in a tiebreak. At 5-5 in the tiebreak, Holger Rune delivered a great forehand winner, and the Dane subsequently converted his first match point to close out the match.
Holger Rune recorded his best result at the Cincinnati Open last year, when he reached the semifinals. In the third round, Holger Rune will meet either Alex Michelsen from the USA or Frenchman Corentin Moutet.