Holger Rune 2025 Season Review: A Year of Struggle

Holger Rune entered 2025 carrying a mixture of talent, expectation, and uncertainty. Once viewed as the third pillar of tennis’s next great trio alongside Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, he arrived at the season with something to prove — that the flashes of brilliance he showed in Paris back in 2022 were not a one-time spark but a sign of what he could still become.

But while he finally ended his two-year title drought, 2025 also delivered him one of the most devastating blows of his young career. This moment may ultimately define the trajectory of everything that comes next.

Holger Rune’s 2025 Season Review

Slow Start to the Season

Rune’s year began on shaky ground. He lost his first match in Brisbane, and he was only a few points from a first-round exit at the Australian Open. He survived that Melbourne scare and then ended up even pushing Jannik Sinner as much as anyone else, in a physical four-set battle, but the performance did little to steady his overall momentum.

The following weeks felt painfully familiar. Rune suffered a string of poor losses, battled illness, and struggled to build any rhythm. But when it seemed the early season would slip away entirely, he caught fire in California. He produced his best tennis in months at Indian Wells, reaching the final with the kind of explosive shot-making that reminded everyone of his immense ceiling.

But the spark didn’t last. He lost the final and then crashed out of Miami in his opening match, another abrupt dip in a season that refused to settle.

The Natural Surface Struggles

The clay and grass swings offered more of the same: inconsistency wrapped around isolated bursts of brilliance. On his favored red clay, he went just 4–4 across the four major events — a disappointing record for someone with his pedigree on the surface. But in the middle of the chaos came a bright moment: he won the Barcelona Open, defeating a hampered Carlos Alcaraz in the final to finally end his two-year drought without an ATP title.

Grass, however, brought little relief. After opening his Queen’s campaign with a couple of clean wins, he faltered again, losing in the quarterfinals before suffering a first-round exit at Wimbledon. It was one of the worst stretches he has endured at the biggest tournaments of his career.

By the time the natural surface season ended, it became clear that the player who once looked ready to join Alcaraz and Sinner at the top had drifted far from that path. Rune was struggling to string together wins, let alone contend for major titles.

The Hard Courts Offer One Last Chance

The North American summer felt like a final window for Rune to reset the story of his season. He linked up with Andre Agassi in Washington, a move that stunned the tennis world and suggested an intent to rebuild. But on the morning of his opening match, he withdrew with a back issue — a sign of the physical troubles that had followed him all year.

He managed to win a few matches in Cincinnati and Toronto, but the US Open brought another disappointment: a second-round exit in a five-set heartbreak. When the final Slam was behind him, Rune was left without a single Major run of significance in 2025.

His following Asian swing was positive on the surface, two quarterfinals, but neither run felt fulfilling. He lost both matches he was favored to win, including a harrowing defeat to Valentin Vacherot in Shanghai.

A Cruel Ending Indoors

If there was one setting where optimism still felt justified, it was the indoor swing. Historically, Rune played some of his sharpest tennis under a roof, and Stockholm offered him a real opportunity to finish the year on a high. For a moment, it looked like he might do just that. He reached the semifinals and led Ugo Humbert by a set.

Then disaster struck.

Rune felt a pop near his left heel and ankle — and moments later, the worst fears were confirmed. He had torn his Achilles tendon. His season was over instantly, replaced by surgery, uncertainty, and a long recovery timeline that may spill well into 2026.

A Tough Road Ahead

Ever since his breakthrough run in Paris in 2022, Holger Rune has been one of tennis’s great unanswered questions. The talent was always real. So was the competitive fire and the edge that made him compelling. But 2025 was supposed to be the season that set his narrative back on track — and instead, it left him with an injury that could alter the course of his entire future.

The year showed a player capable of brilliance but unable to sustain it. A champion in Barcelona but inconsistent everywhere else. A competitor with the tools to challenge the best, but too often undone by dips in level, physical issues, and momentum he couldn’t hold onto. And now he faces the toughest challenge yet. The physical pain of an Achilles rupture. The psychological toll of months away. The fear of becoming tennis’s next “what could have been.”

But Rune also has time — and that matters. He is still young enough to rewrite his story, still talented enough to climb back toward the heights many once predicted for him.

2025 did not provide Holger Rune with the answers he was seeking. It gave him adversity, instability, flashes of hope, and ultimately devastation. But it also gave him one more chance, even if it comes wrapped in the hardest battle he has ever faced: the opportunity to decide what kind of player, and what kind of competitor, he wants to be when he returns.