Holger Rune is one of the fastest-rising stars in the world of tennis today. The World No.6 in the men’s singles category comes into the Wimbledon 2023 Championships, being one of the favorites to make it to the semi-finals. However, his path is set to have some major challenges. One of those will be a potential quarterfinal matchup with World No.1 and top seed, Carlos Alcaraz as both of them are in the same half of the draw.
Carlos Alcaraz and Holger Rune are said to make the next biggest rivalry in men’s tennis, once Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal both call it quits from the game. On head-to-head, both the youngsters have 1 win each. But the mutual respect they have for each other is evident from Rune’s recent comments on Alcaraz.
Holger Rune opens up about Carlos Alcaraz, Wimbledon 2023 poster
In an interview with Daily Mail, Holger Rune recalled his first meeting with Carlos Alcaraz as both were aged just 10. The Danish player is remarkably just a week elder than Alcaraz. Yet he had an instinct that the Spaniard would go on to achieve greater things in the game due to his incredible energy and ability to finish off more points quickly than other young players at that age. Praising him further, Rune called Alcaraz ‘a very nice guy’ who is great to go along with as a friend off-court and always brought the best out of him on court as a rival.
However, recently the Wimbledon organizers released a poster which highlighted the best rivalries in the game and that seems to have not pleased Rune one bit. It is because he was ignored at the expense of Italy’s Jannik Sinner, the World No.8 who is said to be a better rival to Carlos Alcaraz, courtesy some of the matches they have played against each other in recent years. He was quoted as saying to The Times –
“I saw this poster and I don’t have much to say about it. If you talk about rivalries, Alcaraz and I have played plenty more times [including matches at junior tournaments] than Sinner and Alcaraz. We have already played each other twice on the tour.
“It is always good matches with him, really challenging and we can bring the best out of each other. For sure we can have a great rivalry.”
Rune is not the most popular figure on the ATP Tour at the moment, due to his infamous fallouts with Swiss veteran Stan Wawrinka and World No.4, Casper Ruud. However, his ability to beat higher ranked players on his day makes him hard to ignore and perhaps he would use the poster as a motivation to succeed at SW19.
Holger Rune’s Wimbledon 2023 draw
At the time of writing this article, Holger Rune had won the first set, 7-6 against his first round opponent, George Loffhagen till play was suspended on Court No.3. Rune could play USA’s Taylor Fritz in Round of 32 and should he cross the Round of 64, Carlos Alcaraz could be waiting for him in the quarterfinals. In the semi-finals and finals, his most likely opponents would be Stefanos Tsitsipas/Daniil Medvedev and Novak Djokovic respectively.
