Former American tennis star Jimmy Arias believes Holger Rune can be “a very dangerous player” when in-form and added he sees some similarity between Rune and Emma Raducanu’s rise. Last year, Raducanu was ranked No 150 in the world when she won the US Open and made it inside the top-30.
Raducanu continued her rise post-US Open as she also broke into the top-10 this year. Rune, 19, made four consecutive finals during this year’s indoor season, with his biggest victory coming at the Paris Masters. Rune, who entered October ranked just outside the top-30, is now enjoying a career-high ranking of No 10 in the world.
Arias sees similarities between Rune and Raducanu’s rise
“Well, it will be interesting for me if, it might not happen at all, he might just take off from here and be a Top-5 player and consistently winning but usually it takes more time to get to the Top-10 than what he basically did it in a month.
He went from a solid tour player to Top-10 in four week span, that feels ‘Raducanu-ish’ to me but obviously not in the same level,” Arias said on Tennis Channel’s Inside-In podcast, per Sportskeeda. In the Paris Masters final, Rune recovered from a set down to upset Djokovic 3-6 6-3 7-5.
In the 12th game of the third set – when Rune was serving for the match – he saved six break points before converting his second match point. “Yeah surprisingly he did start to play tight in the last game, a little bit of the part I was watching he wasn’t quite bold in some of his shots and I was surprised that Djokovic didn’t break him.
Obviously he has had his chances and didn’t convert any of them,” Arias said. Now, 19-year-old Rune is in Turin, where he is an alternate at the ATP Finals.
