The Fire Within Holger Rune | ATP Tour

Editor’s Note: This story was originally published on 15 January 2022.

Holger Rune has big dreams in tennis. The #NextGenATP Danish star has no problem saying he believes he can compete with everyone on the ATP Tour and that one day, he wants to be World No. 1.

According to Holger’s mother, Aneke Rune, he is not just saying that for the sake of it.

“As Holger says, a lot of guys say I want to be No. 1, but you can see they don’t mean it. He says you can see it in their eyes. For Holger it’s important as well [that] his coach and people involved really want it,” Aneke said. “He feels it immediately if it’s just fake. If some coaches tried to be interested when he was younger, he was like, ‘But he doesn’t mean it’.

“He’s very serious, and still now when he says he wants to improve and wants to do these things, this is what he really means. It’s not like [he is just saying] ‘I want to be a rockstar’. He wants it.”

And Rune has wanted it since he was a young boy. Before he began playing tennis, Holger would go along with his sister, Alma, to her tournaments. He would pull a chair up to the fence to take a close look at the action.

“All the other little sisters and brothers would be saying, ‘Can we go home soon?’” Aneke recalled. “I could pay all my attention to Alma and when one match was finished he took his chair and moved it over to find another match to watch.

“He was hooked before he started himself. He wanted to start, but he wasn’t allowed to until he was six. So when he did start, he was very motivated.”

Rune’s competitive spirit did not take long to come to the forefront. Early on, Holger played foam ball tournaments, in which he would place second.

“He was so angry he didn’t want to get the trophy. He was crying in a match because he saw he couldn’t win. I said, ‘You can’t cry!’” Aneke recalled. “He wanted so much to win and we had to tell him okay skip that, because you’re not going to win if your eyes are all wet, you can’t see the ball.”

^{Photo Credit: Peter Staples/ATP Tour}
But Rune is more than just a competitor. In a way, he is obsessed with the sport. When ATPTour.com asked the Dane last year to describe a perfect day without tennis, he asked if he could watch tennis.

“Sometimes he’s forced to mention some other sports and he says basketball, baseball, football, whatever,” Aneke said. “But honestly, it’s not a real passion.”

Rune is all tennis, all…