Holger Rune once refused to train under a newly-hired coach at his local club in Denmark according to mother Aneke. Rune was only 7-years-old at the time.
Over recent years, the Dane’s dissatisfaction with coaches, even the most high-profile ones, has become public knowledge. For instance, in September 2023, Rune decided to part with Patrick Mouratoglou despite the iconic coach’s undeniable impact on his fledgling career. Mouratoglou’s part-time association with Rune had yielded a Paris Masters triumph in 2022 and a run to the final of the 2023 Rome Masters.
Holger Rune’s mother Aneke, his manager and one of the pillars of the youngster’s team, recently spoke about the incident from her son’s childhood at length in a candid interview with ATPTour.com. Back then, Rune was being trained by Lars Christensen, who has also been a crucial part of the young Dane’s coaching team.
“They hired another coach at the club and Holger was watching him. There were a lot of kids on the court and there were two coaches and the other coach was supposed to take the young kids (including Rune),” she said.
Rune, fearing that his progress would be hampered if Christensen didn’t coach him, made his opinion on the matter crystal clear to Aneke.
“The plan was this new guy should take over all the small kids. Holger went to me and said, ‘I don’t want to have this guy as my trainer’,” she said.
When Aneke tried to reason with her 7-year-old son, he fired back with an ultimatum.
Holger said, ‘Okay that’s fine, then I’ll stop playing’,” she added.