Scandinavia is back in men’s tennis: “Not many care to beat Carlos Alcaraz twice” | Roland Garros

It’s a bit weird and there’s no really good explanation for it, but until recently only Sweden managed to train tennis players who could compete at the top internationally.

Absolute stars enough by the way if you look back. Sven Davidson set the tone in the 1950s. Three finals in Paris and the first Swedish Grand Slam winner at Roland Garros in 1957.

Björn Borg was the tennis superstar in the 1970s and 1980s with 11 Grand Slam titles: six in Paris and five at Wimbledon. Borg was 26 years old when he called it quits. No one could hide emotions on the track better than “Ice Borg”.

A close second was Mats Wilander with seven titles in the Grand Slams, three of them in Paris. Just imagine: before he was 20 he already had four titles in his pocket.

Stefan Edberg was another clapper with six grand slam titles. Watching serve and volley has never been more beautiful than with Edberg. And then we haven’t even mentioned Thomas Johansson, Magnus Norman, Robin Söderling or Jonas Björkman.

Now it’s a bit more difficult. 23-year-old Mikael Ymer is the only Swede in the top 100. With his place in the third round, he is just short of the top 80. Ymer, the son of an Ethiopian couple who emigrated to Sweden, was a fine junior, a European Under-18 Champion.

Ymer hasn’t won any titles in the pros yet, but last year he beat Carlos Alcaraz twice. That is not given to many.

Denmark was put on the tennis map by a woman, not a man. Caroline Wozniacki was world top for about ten years, won 30 titles and was number 1 in the world. She had to wait until the end of her career for her only Grand Slam: the Australian Open in 2018.

There were, of course, Danish men. One Kurt Nielsen played and lost two finals at Wimbledon in the 1950s, but that’s about it.

Kenneth Carlsen, Frederik Fetterlein and Kristian Pless were worth their place in the top 100, not many titles they garnered.

Now there is Holger Rune. Three years ago, Rune won Roland Garros in the juniors. A few months later, he became number 1 in the juniors. Remarkable: Rune has been working with the man who gave him his first tennis lessons at the age of six: Lars Christensen.

He is 19 years old now, the youth rival of Carlos Alcaraz. The Spaniard is already firmly in the top 10, Rune climbs to place 33 thanks to his place in the third round in Paris. At the beginning of this year he was still number 100 in the world.

He also took his first title in Munich, beating home favorite Alexander Zverev along the way. In his opening round here, Rune defeated Denis Shapovalov, still seeded 15th.

Rune remains humble: “Last year around this time I was still playing challengers and I was not in the top 200. Now I have won my first match in a Grand Slam. I believe in myself, I haven’t lost a set yet. I know I can beat anyone, but anyone can beat me too. The key is to focus, I try to improve 1% every day. Working on every detail, making everything a little better every time.”

And what do the Norwegians have with tennis? Very little you may rightly think.

Norway was and is the country of winter sports enthusiasts, is the country of the top athletes Karsten Warholm and the Ingebregtsen brothers. But now also from Casper Ruud.

Walking unnoticed through the streets of Oslo has not really been an option since last year. Casper’s father, Christian, made his first ripple on the water with his 39th place in the world ranking. The Belgian captain of the Davis Cup Johan Van Herck knows daddy Ruud. Van Herck lost a challenger final to him twice.

But through Christian, Casper was bitten by the tennis bug. Casper was the first Norwegian number 1 in the world junior ranking in 2016. To get better, Casper went to Spain. First to Alicante, then to the Rafael Nadal Academy where he trained together with yes, Nadal.

Ruud claims he got 10 to 20% better on Mallorca, that all his shots got stronger and that the duo of Rafael and Toni Nadal provided the percentages that make a top 60 player a top 10 player.

2021 was the year of the complete breakthrough for Ruud. After his first title in 2020, he added five more last year. He started in Geneva and in an amazing month of July he won on clay in three weeks in Bastad, Gstaad and Kitzbuhel. San Diego followed later.

Opponents say that Ruud, 8th in the world now has the heaviest top spin ball of the entire circuit after his semifinals in Monte Carlo and Madrid and his final in Miami.

His mainstay is still his first coach, and that is his father Christian: “The most important period is perhaps between 12/13 and 18/19 years. As a young person, you may want to enjoy many other things. That is normal.”

“But actually you are already a pro. And then it is good that you have your father as a supervisor. Someone who feels the fine line between what is and is not possible. It is the years that ensure that you have the right attitude have to make it as a pro later on. Without my father I would not be where I am now”.