Of course, he was asked about his role model. When you rush to the top of the world at the age of 19 and convincingly defeat the previous year’s finalist in a Grand Slam tournament, the tennis world wants to know: Who is this man?
That Holger Rune is athletic like a soccer player, with calves as thick as Karl-Heinz Briegel’s, that he acts in a variety of ways, sometimes hitting it, sometimes placing stops behind the net with a love, as if the ball should have it as well as possible on this journey , the almost 15,000 spectators in the Court Philippe Chatrier had marveled at all of this on this Monday afternoon. In the end, the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas trolled, Rune was the winner at the microphone.
His Danish English is really too cute. In the press conference, to which a large number of international reporters appeared (a rarity for Scandinavians in tennis), Holger Rune revealed who Holger Rune’s idol is. His explanation was so well-founded that the impression was inevitable: This is a special 19-year-old. As reflected as he speaks.
Roger Federer, to resolve the question, he admires the most, but not simply because there is nothing more conclusive than admiring Federer anyway. He immediately justified it in depth. “The way he switches from the baseline to the net, there is hardly anything like that,” he analyzed the Swiss tennis player, “on these stages you mostly see players hitting hard from behind as hard as they can.”
Rune admires the great Roger Federer – and provides an accurate explanation
Federer, however, throws in a wide repertoire of punches, varies, connects the back seat with the front seat of his half, creates perfect transitions. All of that inspires him. “What was the second question?” Rune suddenly said to the reporter. He was so immersed in his lecture that he had forgotten the second question.
There has been quite a bit of excitement in the self-revolving tennis scene these days, largely due to another 19-year-old. The Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz has won four tournaments this year and the hymns for him continue. In the shadow of this sympathy, however, a lot is also happening. It’s quite good that the men’s ATP tour is no longer running its “next-gen” campaign, because the professional series has now arrived at the next generation and the next generation of talents.
The Norwegian Casper Ruud, who has long been familiar to connoisseurs, also belongs to the first category. The 23-year-old from Oslo had worked his way into the top ten through many successes in smaller ATP tournaments and most recently in events in the Masters series. But now Ruud, who inherited the ball feeling from father Christian, who was once ranked 39th in the world, is making an appearance on the most important stage. After the 6: 2, 6: 3, 3: 6, 6: 3 success against the strong Pole Hubert Hurkacz, Ruud has reached a Grand Slam quarterfinal for the first time, and since he meets Rune, it is clear: a Scandinavian will be reach the semifinals.
Casper Ruud after his victory against Hubert Hurkacz – the Norwegian also has great ambitions in Paris.
(Photo: Thomas Samson/AFP)
“Of course it’s a nice feeling,” said Ruud, an excellent golfer who has played with Rafael Nadal in Mallorca, “but I’m still in tournament mode and I’m not thinking about too many other things, not about the story and this one Milestone”. No Norwegian has ever got as far as he has at Roland Garros. Not even a Dane. Incidentally, Ruud’s appeasement wasn’t a bit boring, but conveyed clearly how these young men tick.
They subordinate everything to success. In an interview, Ruud told the SZ that he always gets statistics from his matches. He looks for weak points and explores them for himself: He has to master the tight match situations more efficiently. Rune once said he wanted to “get one percent better every day”. You can take that as a cliché. Only: It gets one percent better every day.
They can withstand the pressure: both met the French, who were cheered on by the crowd – and won
A year ago, Rune was still outside the top 300 tennis players in the world rankings. He’s already climbing to at least 28th place. His mother Aneke, who plays the most important role for him and also helps him as a psychologist, told the sports newspaper L’Équipe how Holger finished second at the age of seven and refused to lift the trophy. That’s how mad he was. On Monday, Rune sat in front of the world press and said: Of course he wants to be number one, “I’m not hiding it”. It sounded as natural as if he had said Paris is a great city. Those are his standards.
Two appearances in April prove that Rune is not a dreamer, but a hard worker. There he played the Challenger final in Sanremo, which he of course won, albeit in three sets. He got in the car and coach Lars Christensen drove him to Monte Carlo, where Rune successfully played his first qualifying match for the Masters tournament that same day.
“The day before was already hard because I was thinking about how to organize everything,” Rune said recently, amused, in Munich, when you could still have him relaxed as a reporter for yourself. At the MTTC Iphitos, which also expresses the speed of his development, he had defeated Zverev, number three in the world, and then the whole tournament; Of course he lifted his first ATP trophy. He just can’t drive the car he was given. He doesn’t have a driver’s license, he said, laughing.
How robust Rune and Ruud are and how they can withstand pressure, they demonstrated almost in step at the French Open. Both faced the French, who were cheered on frantically. Rune stayed cool against Hugo Gaston from Wusler and consistently followed through with his clever build-up of points. Ruud managed the difficult task of seeing the popular Jo-Wilfried Tsonga into retirement.
At the end, the audience even paid homage to Ruud, who gave a wonderful speech on Tsonga. Rune also arrives, Tsitsipas heard that on the pitch. “Everyone talked about the top half of the draw with Nadal, Djokovic and Alcaraz,” said Ruud to emphasize: “But there are a lot of good players in this tournament.” Himself and Rund are the best proof.
