Holger Rune is a player who was once tipped to be the man to take the mantle from the Big Three.
Sadly, his career has yet to pan out as planned.
Despite reaching a career-high ranking of fourth, making the quarter-finals of two different Grand Slam tournaments, as well as winning a Masters 1000 event, the 22-year-old is still so far away from the top prospect many predicted he would be.
In fact, he has even been overtaken by the likes of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, who have established a dominance over the ATP Tour that nobody seems capable of breaking.
Sadly, Rune’s chances of achieving that across the next 12 months have been rendered hopeless, with a hugely unfortunate Achilles injury ruling him out for the foreseeable future.
Holger Rune is already back on court training
And yet, despite tearing his Achilles tendon in October, the Danish tennis star has already been pictured back on the tennis court just a month later.
Many fans have called the move risky, and some pundits have questioned the thinking behind this rapid return to action.
Whilst his actions are exclusively one-legged, it has still raised eyebrows, and understandably so.
Justifiably, Rune is desperate to get back out playing. However, perhaps he could learn a lesson from Roger Federer’s mistake, when he rushed back too early from his 2016 knee surgery.
In the end, he admitted that he was not ready, and shut down the rest of his season.
His mistake was rushing back too early, and once he had rested, he returned to enjoy one of his best-ever years on tour in 2017. Perhaps Rune might learn a thing or two from taking a break from tennis when his body demands it.
Roger Federer’s injury lesson after rushing back from his 2016 knee surgery
Speaking to the ATP in 2019, Federer spoke openly about the troubles he suffered during that injury-ravaged period.
And, in telling his story, the Swiss superstar actually sent out a very important lesson that other players, including Rune, could learn from.
He began by admitting: “It started good, you know. Playing the semis at the Australian Open and losing to Novak, and hurting my knee, not thinking it was a big deal. Coming back to Switzerland, realising on the MRI that it was a broken meniscus.
“Understanding that I have to have my first surgery, really as a tennis player, I couldn’t believe it. It’s actually quite emotional, especially also after the surgery, you know, looking down at my foot and understanding that maybe this leg or this knee will never be the same.
“Took it on my chin and said, okay, I’ll start working. Basically, the next day, after I came back from the hospital, for some reason, my knee still was not 100% throughout the clay-court season, after that. Also, I got back issues, and I had the knee and the back.
“So that’s when I decided to pull out of the French Open because I just realised there’s no way I can even win a match there. And I was able to get my back in check. My knee was still playing up real funny. In Stuttgart, Halle and Wimbledon.”
Rushing back had not worked, just as some have accused Rune of doing, and Federer eventually realised he had to admit defeat: “I think my body and my knee deserves a break, and everybody agreed with me, and that’s when I decided to take some time off, gave me all the time I needed as well on the practice court, you know, to work on my game again.
“And so when I did come back in 2017, I came back so strong, I couldn’t believe it myself because I actually thought it was going to take me at least almost a half a season to get into the swing of things, but this fairy tale ended very nicely by winning the Australian Open, and my comeback, in the final against Rafa where I was 3-1 down in the fifth, and the rest we know, I go on and turn it around and win it so it was maybe one of, the most special moments in my entire career.”
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