The statistics that defined 2022 – Holger Rune rises from 103 to inside the top 10, and defeats five top-10 players in Paris
Carlos Alcaraz wasn’t the only teenager shaking up the ATP Tour in 2022. Holger Rune did quite a bit of moving and shaking as well…
Holger Rune, Rolex Paris Masters 2022 | © AI / Reuters / Panoramic
Move over, Carlos Alcaraz, there is room for more than one teenager in the top 10, according to fast-rising Holger Rune.
In 2022, the rocketing Dane started the season outside of the top 100, lost seven of his first ten matches, but demonstrated a penchant for rapid growth as winter turned to spring and then to summer.
Gradually, Rune went from lost teen to teen in command on tour, as he won his maiden title in Munich in the spring and never seemed to look back. He reached his first major quarter-final at Roland-Garros, where he defeated 2021 runner-up Stefanos Tsitsipas in the round of 16.
Despite a head-scratching seven-match losing streak that started with his quarter-final loss to Casper Ruud at Roland-Garros and did not end until August, Rune caught fire after the US Open and finished with a run of eye-opening tennis that took him to the finals of the last four events he played.
Beating five top-10 opponents in Paris
If there was one statistic that truly illuminated us on the potential of Rune it was this: he became the first ATP player on record to record five wins over top-10 players at the same event (with the exception of the ATP Finals) at the Paris Masters, where he defeated Novak Djokovic in the final (3-6, 6-3, 7-5) to assure himself of a spot in the top-10 on the following Monday.
Rune was a one-man wrecking ball in Bercy, the site of the Paris Masters. He defeated Stan Wawrinka after saving a match point in the opening round, then went through a gauntlet to claim the title.
Here is how he won the title:
- Round of 32: d. No 10 Hubert Hurkacz, 7-5, 6-1
- Round of 16: d. No 9 Andrey Rublev, 6-4, 7-5
- Quarter-final: d. No 1 Alcaraz 6-3, 6-6 RET
- Semi-final: d. No 8 Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-4, 6-2
- Final: d No 7 Novak Djokovic, 3-6, 6-3, 7-5
Rune is also one of nine players that won an ATP title from match point down in 2022, and one of the nine ATP players that won an ATP title without dropping a set (Munich).
Joining Alcaraz in the top 10
By reaching the top 10 on November 7, Rune became the first Dane to ever crack the ATP’s top 10 and became one-half of the first teenage duo to occupy spots inside the top 10 since Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic did so on May 14, 2007.
Alcaraz jumped a total of 93 spots in 2022, the second-highest rise inside the ATP’s top 50.
Mouratoglou – it’s just the beginning
Patrick Mouratoglou, who joined Rune’s coaching team in 2022, says that we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg from the Dane.
“We are reaching the end of the season,” he said after Paris. “We will work on that. It’s not really that there is a danger, but there is a lot of work to provide. He’s top-10. It’s not his ambition. It’s wonderful, but it’s not his ambition.
“I don’t know [if] we have actually seen his top tennis. It’s higher than before, but we have to upgrade his average tennis play and to make sure that his normal average play is as excellent as we have seen so far.”
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