Holger Rune once again gave a solid account of himself in his latest showing at Monte-Carlo, yet his tournament was overshadowed by his actions off the court.
After all, whilst his hand gestures towards the crowd were harmless, if slightly inflammatory, he did not leave it there.
He would take to X, seeking to lambast the ATP Tour for seemingly everything he could.
It was actually pretty funny to watch his meltdown occur, but one pundit feels like has every right to be aggrieved.
Tennis podcaster offers verdict on Holger Rune
Speaking on The Tennis Podcast, released just yesterday, the trio of pundits sought to offer their verdict on the recent action within the sport.
Naturally, the Monte-Carlo Masters dominated proceedings.
Whilst there were congratulations for Stefanos Tsitsipas and questions asked about Casper Ruud, it was Rune to whom they dedicated a large segment purely due to his post-tournament tweets after being dumped out by Jannik Sinner.
Well, podcaster and tennis pundit Matt Roberts sought to at least defend the 20-year-old, noting: ‘The thing is, I loved all of this, I think he was well within his rights to be quite annoyed about his week in Monte-Carlo.
‘Not necessarily playing the two matches in one day, I didn’t necessarily think that that was some egregious mistake by the ATP, they were playing catchup.
‘I did think it was pretty outrageous that he was scheduled second the next day after finishing very late rather than third, which was Djokovic-De Minaur. I think they could easily have switched those two matches around and given Rune some more recovery time. I thought that was pretty unfair.
‘And then during that match against Sinner, he got an unsportsmanlike conduct warning for doing a gesture to the crowd which was to tell them to shut up basically. And again, I’m not sure that that is being applied to every player.
‘I mean literally the day before Djokovic was sort of conducting the crowd and playfully joking with them, which is all very much within the same genre of expression towards the crowd. I think that was pretty harsh from the umpire to give Holger Rune a warning for that.’
Holger Rune still impressed in Monte-Carlo
Despite the controversy attached to his spell in Monaco, it still cannot be forgotten how impressive Rune was throughout, with some truly spellbinding tennis played at times.
After all, his first match-up against Summit Nagal was far from easy, but he navigated it well to face Grigor Dimitrov.
With the Bulgarian having played some of the tennis of his life this year, the one-handed backhander posed an intriguing threat on the clay courts.
However, Rune again powered through, winning two hard-fought tiebreaks to face Sinner.
Taking the Italian all the way to the third set, it was a true battle, and proof that the Danish star can compete with the very best despite having endured coaching unrest this year.
All he needs now is some consistency, which could be aided by greater mental clarity alongside some much-needed physical training.
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