Concerns have been raised about Holger Rune\u2019s racket switch from Babolat to Wilson ahead of his return from injury.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old has not played on the ATP Tour since tearing his Achilles tendon at the 2025 Stockholm Open last October.\u00a0The Dane has repeatedly delayed his comeback, with the former world No 4 since dropping to 81st in the rankings \u2013 his lowest since early 2022.<\/p>\n
Rune is on the entry list for the Cincinnati Masters in mid-August, but hopes that he may hit the ground running are being tempered. According to tennis content creator Gill Gross, the right-hander will have to be patient before he can play his best tennis again.<\/p>\n
The commentator believes it could be at least six months before that is the case, something that was similar for Alexander Zverev after returning from the ankle injury he sustained at the 2022 French Open.<\/p>\n
Gross said on his YouTube channel<\/a>, \u201cI think the expectation should be really low. If you\u2019ve seen how arduous this recovery process has been, this is a real break where you\u2019re going to have some serious rust: mentally, technically, physically.<\/p>\n Carlos Alcaraz: Injury concerns grow ahead of US Open as Spaniard trains at \u2018very low intensity\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Canadian Open withdrawal list: List grows to 8 as another Grand Slam finalist joins Carlos Alcaraz, Emma Raducanu<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as\u00a0<\/span>a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThis will probably be a pretty slow build for Holger<\/a>. [Rafael] Nadal and [Jack] Draper are examples of players who tend to come back, and it doesn\u2019t take them very long to get going, but Zverev did take a while to come back from his ankle injury at Roland Garros.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen he came back, he was okay for about six months but he didn\u2019t move like he usually moves and his confidence was pretty low overall on big points. There were a lot of issues when Zverev<\/a> came back, and that lasted about six to eight months, and I would expect a similar timeline with Holger.\u201d<\/p>\n During his time away from the game, Rune has switched from the Babolat Pure Aero 98 to the Wilson Defyer racket.<\/p>\n In early July, he said on the decision, \u201cI was instantly drawn to this racket when I first started playtesting with Wilson. They have been supportive of my recovery, and I can\u2019t wait to compete with Defyer when I hit the court.\u201d<\/p>\n Gross then referenced reports that Rune had made the change for \u201cbusiness reasons\u201d, before going on to say that that was a \u201cdangerous\u201d game to play.<\/p>\n He cited how Andre Agassi was one such famous example, with the American signing a lucrative contract to play with a Donnay racket before having a lot more success with Head.<\/p>\n Gross said, \u201cIt will be interesting to see Holger coming back with a reworked forehand technique and also with a different racquet. He is now with Wilson instead of Babolat.<\/p>\n \u201cWhich is interesting, right? Who switches off of the Pure Aero, everyone switches to the Pure Aero. It is very rare you see it the other way but this is Wilson\u2019s new spin-orientated frame that was designed to rival the Pure Aero.\u201d<\/p>\n Gross added that if this switch was made for financial reasons, that made him a \u201clittle queasy\u201d, before continuing, \u201cI am sure Holger will get accustomed to his new frame and it will probably be fine but there are some horror stories out there where players are making those decisions based on contractual stuff and monetary things\u2026 Andre Agassi had a famous one for example.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a dangerous game to play so hopefully that was handled correctly for Holger.\u201d<\/p>\n Incidentally, Rune has developed an intriguing rivalry with Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>, who is also out injured. The pair have played against each other for well over a decade and have a 2-2 head to head.<\/p>\n Rune won their last meeting, with the Danish star triumphing in the final of the 2025 Barcelona Open in straight sets. Many tennis fans will be eagerly awaiting their return at Cincinnati next month.<\/p>\n WHAT NEXT? Carlos Alcaraz, Emma Raducanu withdrawals spark tennis injury theory from ex-star<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Holger Rune comeback fears grow as racket switch raises \u2018dangerous game\u2019 warning<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Concerns have been raised about Holger Rune\u2019s racket switch from Babolat to Wilson ahead of his return from injury. The 23-year-old has not played on the ATP Tour since tearing his Achilles tendon at the 2025 Stockholm Open last October.\u00a0The Dane has repeatedly delayed his comeback, with the former world No 4 since dropping to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2520\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}More Tennis Injury News<\/h2>\n