"Sorry but that’s what I thought": Carlos Alcaraz names Holger Rune as biggest trash talker on ATP Tour

Spain’s young tennis star Carlos Alcaraz has picked another young player as the biggest trash talker on the ATP tour. The 21-year-old is already regarded as one of the best players currently playing in men’s tennis along with Italy’s Jannik Sinner and Serbia’s Novak Djokovic.

Alcaraz was featured in a video on the social media platform X — previously known as Twitter — where he was asked different questions. One of the such questions was to identify the biggest trash talker on the ATP Tour. In response to that, the Spaniard instantly responded by saying that it is Denmark’s Holger Rune. “Rune. Sorry, sorry but that’s what I thought, that’s what I thought (smiling),” he said.

This is not the first time a professional player, current or former, who has talked about Rune’s interesting behaviour, on and off the court. Previously, former Denmark player Frederik Nielsen also highlighted Rune’s temperament issues but defended it by saying that when he was his age, he was even worse than his him.

“When I was that age, I was far worse than Rune is,” he said. “It might just look a bit more intense because there aren’t many like him, and because there’s a camera on him 24 hours a day. I never really thought it was that bad. He’s young, and to me, it’s just a signal of how much he wants it. He shouldn’t get rid of it completely, but he will probably figure out more and more when it is constructive and when it doesn’t help him as much.”

Rune is going through an interesting season. The Gentofte-born recently participated in the Wimbledon 2024 where he was knocked out after losing to Serbia’s legendary tennis star Novak Djokovic in the fourth round with a score of 6-3, 6-4, 6-2. After that, Rune participated in the Hamburg Open where he was forced to retire in the quarterfinal against France’s Arthur Fils.