After 335 days without a match, Holger Rune was finally back on the tennis court—and he returned with a victory on Friday evening In front of an ecstatic crowd at Royal Stage in Hillerod, Rune won his comeback match against Iliyan Radulov, 6-3, 6-3.
With Bulgaria having taken the lead, Rune felt the pressure in his first match in exactly 11 months. However, he handled that pressure well after a somewhat uneven start.
Rune was buoyed by the crowd of around 3,000 spectators in Hillerod from the moment he stepped onto the court for the warm-up, and the atmosphere intensified further when he won the opening point and, subsequently, the game.
It was not to be an easy match, however, despite his opponent’s world ranking of 596. Iliyan Radulov was a highly promising junior player, but is still awaiting his breakthrough on the ATP Tour. He quickly demonstrated impressive baseline skills, however, and secured the match's first service break to go up 3-2.
The Dane gradually began to find greater consistency in the rallies midway through the first set, raising his level a notch above his opponent's and after winning four consecutive games, Rune took the set 6-3 in 36 minutes.
Radulov occasionally held his own in the rallies as the two players traded groundstrokes back and forth endlessly but after a long opening game in the second set, Rune secured his third consecutive service break.
Rune faced few issues on his own serve but continued confidently toward a comeback victory. He sealed the win after one hour and 25 minutes, breaking serve to make it 6–3 following a game in which he brought the arena to a boil with a brilliant lob.
Holger Rune was visibly moved as he reflected on the victory in his comeback match. "Wow. It’s crazy. It’s crazy," said Holger Rune, momentarily searching for the right words.
"It’s been pretty brutal. It was obviously an unfortunate injury, but we’ve trained a lot. I’ve got up every day to do rehab just to be here. It’s the perfect way for me to start, in front of the best crowd in the world," he said to dr.dk.