Another one to whom we must not speak of age. At 19 – since we have to set the scene all the same – Holger Rune has just lived the week of his life at Bercy. After saving three match points in the first round against Stan Wawrinka then taking out four members of the top 10 in the following ones (Hurkacz, Rublev, Alcaraz, Auger-Aliassime), the Dane overthrew Novak Djokovic this Sunday to afford the first Masters 1000 of his career. On his first try. “It’s an incredible feeling, a dream come true. It’s hard to express what I feel, ”he said an hour after lifting the trophy, the smile screwed on his little angel face.
Don’t be fooled by appearances, of course. Holger Rune is the voracious type, like those little animals to which you hold out your hand to laugh and which end up eating your fingers. Even the Serb, although not the partridge of the year with his 21 Grand Slam titles in 20 years on the circuit, was taken in. “I was amazed by his pugnacity, welcomed Djoko. He always remained impassive throughout the match. For someone so young to show that maturity in a match like this is impressive. He was brave, he deserved it. »
Always taking risks
He is not the only one to have been amazed. At 0-40 in the first game of the second set, after giving up the first in 30 minutes, we weren’t giving much of our skin. At 3-1 against him in the last round after having offered the break on a plateau to his opponent on a double fault, we had squarely started to engrave Djokovic’s name on the trophy. “I tried to stay in the present moment, simply explained the person concerned. I had to accept losing games against a player like him, one of the best in the world. »
Above all, he continued to take risks, holding more than once (and missing more than once) second service balls at 200 km / h. His way of staying in the game, saving six break points at 5-4 in the last set, to go and win the title on a final pass at the feet of Djokovic. Disarming.
Djoko recognizes himself a little in this little scabby
So here is Holger Rune, 103rd in the world at the start of the season, settling in the top 10 from Monday. Titled in Stockholm and finalist in Basel before tumbling to Bercy, he remains on three exceptional weeks which only bode well for next season. Patrick Mouratoglou, present in the staff of the Dane with coach Lars Christensen for a few months (but who has known the joker since a very young age), believes that his foal has found two essential things during this sequence:
Already, he manages better to manage his emotions, that’s what allows him to win this week. He has extraordinary mental abilities, but he didn’t have the emotional management to get them. Now he can. It shows in his way of finding solutions, of releasing three big firsts when he is trailing 0-40. These are not things you see every day. Second thing, his game is more structured. It’s hard to be stable in a match, in a season, when you don’t have a clear vision of your game. Before, he was in extremes, highs or lows, and that lasted a long time. It’s more orderly today, it allows him to go through these stages. »
While waiting to find out if he will play the Masters at the end of the season in Turin (he is the first substitute), Rune can already turn to the rest. She has everything to be flamboyant, with her friend from the 2003 generation, Carlos Alcaraz. “The two have similarities, this energy on the court, this motivation, this desire to do well, lists Djoko, who admits to recognizing himself a little in the scabby Holger Rune. They are already very complete players for their age, and above all very present mentally. »
Mouratoglou, he points out the next steps to take. “He is 10th in the world, it’s great, but it’s not his ambition. The important thing is not the level of play in a tournament, but the average level of play. It is higher than a few months ago, but we have to climb it again, says the former coach of Venus Williams. Its room for improvement is still enormous. After Alcaraz’s success at the US Open, Juan Carlos Ferrero estimated that his colt was at 60% of his potential. “He is 50%”, replied Mouratoglou laughingly to a colleague who threw him on the comparison. Surely not the last time we play this little game with these two.