Holger Rune called out for ‘hopeless’ attempts to romance Jannik Sinner’s ex-girlfriend

The many mysteries of modern tennis include the recent underperformance of Holger Rune – the talented Dane who beat Novak Djokovic in the Paris Masters final when only 19, but who has struggled to back this result up.

One possible explanation has emerged this summer. Could Rune – now 22 – have been distracted by his, ahem, extracurricular activities?

This week, world No 32 Anna Kalinskaya became the second high-ranking WTA player to call Rune out for sending her romantic invitations.

The first player had been Kalinskaya’s Russian compatriot Veronika Kudermetova, who said on a podcast in July that Rune had recently texted her.

As Kudermetova explained: “I told him, ‘Boy, I’m probably too old for you. If you looked at my Instagram, you’d see I have a husband.’ He replied, ‘Oh, sorry.’ Since then, he doesn’t even say hello to me anymore.”

In the case of Kalinskaya, she was asked about her dating life in a Russian-language interview. With regard to other players who asked her out, she said that “Someone wrote like 10 times, then gave up”.

“Who was that desperate one?” replied the interviewer, to which Kalinskaya explained: “Holger Rune. He writes to everyone. Deserves all this. Thinks too much of himself. Maybe he’s just that hopeless. But he’s not the only one.”

After this clip of the interview went viral, racking up millions of views in a few hours, Rune felt the need to reply. “Ha ha ha,” Rune wrote on X. “We may have cultural differences that make Anna read a comment on a story as an invitation to a date. If I want to go on a date, I ask for a date. Don’t worry.”

Kalinskaya – who is 26 and has been ranked as high as No 11 in the world – previously dated world No 2 Jannik Sinner. They spent much of 2024 as an item, supporting each other at courtside during matches, before the relationship fizzled out.

Before that, she had been linked with Australian controversialist Nick Kyrgios, who caused a stir when he responded to a photograph of her and Sinner on social media with the caption “Second serve”.

In January, Andy Roddick’s tennis podcast, Served, included a suggestion that Kyrgios’s relentless criticism of Sinner’s positive doping tests on social media had been connected with bad blood over Kalinskaya.

Kyrgios responded directly to this suggestion on social media, saying: “I couldn’t care less where Sinner lays his wood. I’m in a happy relationship. I just don’t like people who are cheating the system.”

Relationships on tour are a common feature of professional tennis, although few tend to last for long. The exceptions include Gaël Monfils and Elina Svitolina, who are married and have a two-year-old daughter, as well as the engaged pairing of Katie Boulter and Alex de Minaur.

Earlier this summer, Emma Raducanu said questions over her dating status were “terrible”, when a reporter asked whether she was with Cameron Norrie.

“I think they’re more curious about this news than any tennis results and tennis news,” she said. “But I just keep to myself, my private life to one side.”

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