Holger Rune leapt to the top of the tennis ladder in double quick time, but staying there proved to be more challenging than this young Dane would have expected.

Rune’s stunning victory over Novak Djokovic in the 2022 Paris Masters final appeared to have fired the starting gun on a sparkling career for a teenager who appeared to be the star name tennis had been waiting for as the era of dominance for Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic came to an end.

Yet Rune’s rise has staggered a little over the last couple of years, with Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz emerging as the young guns ready to start a new golden era of their own.

Now 21 and sitting at No 13 in the ATP Rankings at the end of 2024, Rune admits the last two years have been a crash course of adapting to his new reality dealing with inflated expectations.

Here, in the first part of his interview with Tennis365 conducted as he competed at the UTS Grand Final in London, Rune looks back on the challenges he has faced and what he hopes will come next.

We are two years on from your win at the Paris Masters, so how would you reflect on the ups and downs of your story since then?

Holger Rune: It’s been challenging and good in many ways. It all happened very fast for me and that was nice but it was also stressful in some moments, especially when I started playing bad at the end of 2023. Now I am back on a better path and improving. Now I’m not looking too much into what happened in the past, but more what is happening now and in the future as that’s what I can control.

How did it feel to have all the hype and expectation building around you?

Holger Rune: It’s tough in some ways, but it’s also great. You can look at it in two different ways. You can say there is a lot of pressure, or you can say it’s amazing that people believe in me and have high expectations for me to be a great player. This is my dream and we are living it.

Does the weight of expectation affect you when you get on court?

Holger Rune: I don’t think about it when I’m playing. I don’t think I need to win this match because of the expectations on me. I am very competitive when I go out there and you need to learn that when you are young, you don’t know everything yet. It’s about finding out how to react after great moments and to practice even harder after great moments.

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Do you think you have not prepared in the right way over the last couple of years? 

Holger Rune: Sometimes when you are winning, you think you should train the same, but everyone else trains so much harder because they want to beat you. So you need to follow the train in a way and I think I am back doing that. I’m willing to improve and listen to my team to do what I need to do.

What do you need to do differently to improve your game?

Holger Rune: I have always believed in myself, but over the last one and a half years, I haven’t put the right work in. Now I am putting the right work in I hope the rewards will come. Without the specific tennis, fitness and mental things we are working on, it won’t happen. Everyone can say they want to win a Grand Slam, but you need to put the right work in.

When you say you didn’t put the right work in, what did you mean by that?

Holger Rune: I can only blame myself because the decisions were all made by me. Every coach I’ve had and every person I’ve had has done the best they can do for my tennis, but it needs to fit the person and I think it’s really, really personal to have the right people. There are not hundreds of guys out there, but it’s about having the right people in your team who can give me what I want to improve my game and I feel like I have that now.

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