Holger Rune
said that reaching World No. 4 "was not a result of my work" and
considered his highest ranking more of a "gift" due to the results of
other players. The Dane broke into the top 10 for the first time at the end of
2022, just after winning the Paris Masters with an impressive victory over
Novak Djokovic in the final.
Although he
finished the season as World No. 11, he had few points to defend at the start
of 2023, given that he had alternated between ATP Tour and Challenger
tournaments. During the 2023 clay swing, he won the Munich Open title and
reached the finals at the Rome and Monte-Carlo Masters. He also made it to the
quarterfinals of both the French Open and Wimbledon, which gave him the final
push to reach his best ranking as World No. 4.
"Now I feel like I have much more experience"
However,
Rune recently revealed in an interview with Quindici Zero that he feels
his rise to that position was more due to the inconsistency of his competitors
than his own results: "Honestly, I deserved to be in the Top 7 / Top 8
because of the results I achieved between the end of 2022 and the beginning of
2023," the 21-year-old player said.
"But reaching the 4th place in the ranking was not a result of my work, it
was a gift because of the results of the other players above me who did not
defend the points from the previous year."
Currently,
World No. 4 is Novak Djokovic with 6,210 points, while when Rune held the same
position, he had "only" 4,790 points, which would hypothetically
place him at World No. 6 today. "At that moment I was not ready: my game
was not Top 4, as well as my mentality. Now I feel like I have much more
experience, and this part is important, because you need to adapt in the right
way to stay at that level."
"Some
people do it faster than others. I feel comfortable in every aspect of the game
now: this makes the mental aspect less demanding and generates energy to
develop my game again. So now I feel good about all of this," he
concluded.
Rune is now preparing for his debut in the
Six Kings Slam, where he will face Carlos Alcaraz in his first match. The winner of this match will move on to the semifinals and will face 22-time Grand Slam champion
Rafael Nadal.