The Budding 19-Year-Old Star at the French Open Not Named Carlos Alcaraz

PARIS — With all due respect and a focus to Carlos Alcaraz, a favourite to win the 2022 French Open, there’s one other heralded 19-year-old nonetheless alive in the males’s singles draw, a man from Denmark named Holger Rune.

The similarities largely finish there for 2 gamers who might very effectively find yourself being rivals for the subsequent decade, which is about how lengthy they’ve been rivals already. For the second, although, and perhaps only for one other few days, they inhabit separate worlds.

“It’s pretty fun when you see these players here that you have been playing at junior tournaments for years,” Rune stated in an interview Thursday after a second consecutive straight-set win launched him into the third spherical of a Grand Slam event for the first time.

Alcaraz, a Spaniard ranked No. 6, has sucked up a lot of the oxygen on the days he has performed, though he shares the stage with some fairly good gamers named Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. Alcaraz’s five-set comeback from match level down on Wednesday towards Albert Ramos Viñolas was the match of the event to this point.

Rune, ranked No. 40, has floated beneath the radar. He has but to drop a set.

Alcaraz performs in the massive stadiums and is the speak of the locker room.

“The famous Carlos Alcaraz,” is how the Russian Daniil Medvedev, the 2021 U.S. Open champion who’s seeded second, just lately described him with a smirk.

Rune has to this point performed on Court 12, inside Roland Garros’ low-rent district, the place the backcourt is so tight he tripped over the folded tarp that protects the clay from the rain whereas chasing a backhand Thursday and badly twisted an ankle. He was simply three video games from successful. For a second, he thought this was very unhealthy. He limped to his chair and acquired medical consideration, then got here again and closed out Henri Laaksonen of Switzerland, 6-2,6-3, 6-3.

Alcaraz has darkish hair and darkish eyes and for the final 12 months has appeared to mannequin his look and his quietly assured however humble demeanor after the Big Three: Nadal, Djokovic and Roger Federer. His coach, and the mannequin for all he does, is the soft-spoken former world No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero. Alcaraz’s father has described his son as the final workhorse, even when he was a small boy.

Rune, a Nordic soiled blond, performs in a backward baseball cap. His coach, the little-known Lars Christensen, started instructing him when Rune was 6 years outdated after he appeared at the native membership in Denmark that Christensen ran.

It works, however it has not at all times been easy.

“I was lazy when I was a kid. I mean like 12 or 13,” he stated Thursday after he withdrew from the doubles event to guard his ankle.

Alcaraz hits the ball so exhausting even the world’s finest gamers say it will possibly take a set to regulate to his tempo. He doesn’t lack for contact, however at his core he leans on a testosterone-fueled model of the sport.

Rune performs a method crammed with finesse. He drifts throughout the court docket and by no means appears to expend extra vitality than what’s crucial.

He and Alcaraz started enjoying every years in the past in the under-12 competitions. They have performed 10 instances, he thinks. He’s fairly certain Alcaraz has the edge, 6-4, over the years. Alcaraz beat him in straight units in November at the Next Gen ATP Finals in Italy.

Both had coming-out events of kinds at the U.S. Open final 12 months. Alcaraz, then identified principally to tennis geeks, upset the third-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas in a five-set epic in the third spherical.

Rune drew Djokovic in the first spherical.

“My goal is not just to play here. My goal is to win this tournament,” Rune declared earlier than that match. He misplaced the first set, 6-1, however gained the second in a tiebreaker earlier than his legs gave out and he misplaced 12 of the subsequent 15 video games.

“I was a little inexperienced,” he stated Thursday. “Didn’t know what it takes to play five sets, possibly in every match.”

He nonetheless doesn’t lack in self-regard. “I believe in my game,” he stated, although he has now added a dose of realism. “I believe I can beat anybody, but I also believe I can lose to anybody.”

True sufficient, however it’s additionally price noting that for years each tennis pundit — Patrick McEnroe, Brad Gilbert and on and on — was pretty sure that the days of discussing teenage contenders at main tournaments had handed. The sport had develop into too bodily, they stated. It was the area of males.

Alcaraz has dispelled that notion, successful massive tournaments close to Miami and in Madrid this spring and beating Nadal, Djokovic and the Olympic gold medalist Alexander Zverev alongside the manner.

Rune will not be far behind. A French Open junior champion in 2019, he gained his first ATP Tour title in Munich earlier this month, knocking off Zverev alongside the manner.

He gained a BMW for the effort, however there’s one drawback, which serves as a reminder of his youth: He has but to take the check for his driver’s license.

“Didn’t have the time,” he stated. “When we have some time off, we are definitely going to do the driver’s license and take the car.”

Alcaraz bought his license in February.