Who is Holger Rune? “I’m a happy boy, I’m enjoying life,” said Holger Rune, barely taking a breath to add with a mischievous grin: “But something changes on the pitch. Every time I step onto the pitch, I want to I win. It doesn’t matter who I’m playing against or where. I have this inner fighting spirit that always comes out when I’m playing. I like it, it gives me the adrenaline.” And what are the chances against Alexander Zverev, who is number three in the world rankings after all? “Hopefully it will be a great match,” said Holger Rune enthusiastically, this time his eyes were glowing as if he were ready to march onto Center Court at the BMW Open. That was on Tuesday. On Wednesday he was allowed to go to the main square of the ATP tournament in the MTTC Iphitos, and if some of the around 2500 spectators in the stadium should have asked themselves who this Holger Rune actually is: Now they know that there is a new youngster on the tour, who acts with a lot of adrenaline.
Actually, one thought: wasn’t Zverev the 17-year-old who challenges the older professionals? Oh no, it was back in 2014 when this slim-legged rascal first hit the Aumeisterweg on the edge of the English Garden and was humiliated by the Austrian Jürgen Melzer with a million stops. Of course, Zverev has long been a seasoned professional, Olympic champion, two-time ATP world champion, time somehow flies, and that was also visible on that day. Just different than expected.
His first win against a top ten player: Holger Rune is already playing very mature, varied tennis.
(Photo: Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
Suddenly there was a new teenager named Rune, only 18 with a beard, from Copenhagen, strong thighs, cap backwards, stretching both arms in the air at just before 3 p.m. 6: 3, 6: 2 he had defeated Zverev, the two-time tournament winner in Munich. “I have so much respect for him,” said Rune, who was playfully less respectful in the match itself. Like Melzer, he repeatedly lured his opponent to the net with stops, then the balls whistled left and right past 25-year-old Zverev. For Rune, who has shot up from 474th to 70th in the world rankings since the beginning of 2021, the story of ascent also continues in Munich. After three defeats against players from the top ten, he has now defeated one of this elite group. Only one problem could arise for him: In Munich, the champion traditionally receives a car – and Rune does not yet have a driver’s license. But he wanted to do it soon, he had also assured.
Zverev marched off the field quite soberly, the defeat that he had seldom suffered at such a level is dramatic, but actually not, at least in fact. He rarely loses points, having progressed only one round last year when he was eliminated in the quarterfinals. Next week it will also continue in Madrid, then in Rome, he has already won both Masters tournaments, and the Munich event is in the smallest category of the tour (250s) in terms of ranking. But tennis players, and he in particular, live from self-confidence, from the momentum of success, only before the start of the tournament in Munich had Zverev emphasized, despite his changeable start to the season: “I’m here with the feeling that a lot can change and I’m having the best year of my will have life.” As he sat at Wednesday’s press conference, glassy-eyed, chin propped on his hand, that feeling was gone.
“I haven’t really found my rhythm here in the last few days”
“It was bottomless. I was incredibly nervous before the match today, playing in front of an audience in Germany for the first time in three years,” he said, “I’m sorry for the spectators, I’m sorry for the tournament.” He even thought: “That was probably the worst match I’ve played in the last five, six, seven years.” He didn’t want to accept a slight cold as an explanation, “Today in the main field I would have lost against everyone”, he said in the deepest melancholy, whereby he also paid tribute to Rune for his good performance. But he consistently located the error in the system: “I haven’t really found my rhythm here in the last few days,” Zverev continued, and on this point he was absolutely right.
Although he had found joy again on the pitch, he had openly admitted that in the first three months it had blocked him at times from always having the first place in the world rankings in sight. “I felt extremely under pressure and not free,” he admitted, “I was under so much pressure that I wasn’t having fun at times.” After all, he worked on this deficit in Munich, he also had happy units, with the Georgian Nikolos Bassilaschwili and the Norwegian Casper Ruud, girlfriend Sophia Thomalla mostly sat on the bench (liked to make a phone call), and Lövik, the Zverevs’ little family dog, jetted across the red ash. Meanwhile, Sergi Bruguera was pacing back and forth on the fence, the two-time French Open winner from Spain has recently been in charge of Zverev as a trainer. It all looked harmonious. But what good did that do this Wednesday?
And so Zverev, who is also on a reparation tour after the turbulence because of his freak out in Acapulco and would have liked to present himself well in Germany, actually had no approach to a deeper analysis of his unusual failure. “If you find an excuse now, you’re certainly not the smartest person in the world,” he admitted and said goodbye with a short: “I’m sorry.”