Denmark’s Holger Rune is looking forward to testing his body when he returns to competitive tennis this weekend for his country’s Davis Cup clash with Bulgaria.
The former top 10 player hasn’t played a match for 11 months after suffering a serious Achilles injury whilst playing at the 2025 Stockholm Open. He suffered a rupture of his proximal left Achilles tendon, which required surgery shortly afterwards. Rune has undergone extensive rehab and, on numerous occasions, has had to delay his return to competition.
After passing on playing at the US Open, the 23-year-old resumes his career on home territory at the Davis Cup. The tie will be held at the Royal Stage in Hillerod and will also feature Grigor Dimitrov.
“It’s a good opportunity to test where I’m at. Because training is one thing, and a match is something else entirely,” Rune told Danish media on Thursday.
“I don’t know how my body will react. I’ve been training incredibly hard in the run-up to this and my game is improving with every passing day.”
While he is relishing his return to competition, Runbe admits he has nerves too.
“I’ve got plenty of butterflies in my stomach because it’s been so long since I’ve had to perform in front of an audience. But I couldn’t dream of a better start than doing it on home soil.” He commented.
“I’ve pushed myself as hard as I can in training, and now I feel I’m at a stage where I can afford to play a match. I couldn’t have prepared any better than I have.”
Getting to where he is now has been far from easy for Rune, who opens up about the mental challenges of dealing with a long-term injury. Initially, he set an ambitious target of returning in May at the Hamburg Open but pulled out of the clay event because he wasn’t ready. He then planned to play during the grass and North American swings before deciding against it because of his fitness.
“In the sixth or seventh month, it started to get mentally tough because I was able to be back on court again, but I couldn’t do very much,” Rune explained.
“The last month and a half, on the other hand, has been fun because I was able to fine-tune the final details and play points again.”
In recent weeks, Rune fine-tuned his game by hitting with Carlos Alcaraz, who has gone through his own injury battle. Alcaraz missed five months of the Tour due to a wrist injury but returned to action at the US Open where he reached the quarter-finals before losing in five sets to Ben Shelton.
“I trained with Carlos Alcaraz in the run-up and tried to get ready. I probably could have played (the US Open), but I wasn’t sure I could play five sets,” he said.
The Davis Cup might be his comeback event, but Rune knows expectations will be high. Despite his lengthy absence, he is still the No.1 Danish singles player and one of only two currently in the top 200. The other is world No.174 Elmer Moller.
“We just need to make the most of having home advantage, even though there are higher expectations – but they’re only positive ones – and I’ve missed both the pressure I put on myself and the pressure from outside,” he concluded.
