Holger Rune and his family have become the target of “threats” as the Dane’s sister was forced to address the hateful online messages. Alma Rune said they would be reporting any threats to the police and reminded followers to “be nice”. It comes as the world No 5 has been struggling for form while carrying a back injury.
Rune’s sister revealed that the family had already gone to the police after receiving threats online. In an Instagram story shared over the weekend, Alma wrote: “Just to be very clear, threats against me and my family has been reported to the police.
“And for information the consequences are not milder because it’s online. And for all the other hateful messagePlease, it doesn’t hurt to try and be nice.” It’s not known what the tennis star’s sister is referring to but the 20-year-old has been struggling to win matches since his run to the quarter-final of Wimbledon.
Rune crashed out in the first round of the Masters events in Canada and Cincinnati as well as the US Open and lost all of his matches at two team events – the Davis Cup and the Hopman Cup. He was able to get his first match win in over a month at last week’s China Open in Beijing, beating Felix Auger-Aliassime before losing to Grigor Dimitrov.
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But the world No 5’s woes continued at the Shanghai Masters where he lost his opening match to Marcos Giron 6-0 6-2. Rune recently split with Patrick Mouratoglou and linked back up with his old coach Lars Christensen. The Dane has also been struggling with a back injury brought on by a change in service motion.
Last month, his mother and manager Aneke told TV 2 Sport that the issue started during the Rome Masters – where Rune reached the final – and became worse at the French Open because “he was swaying too much on his serve“.
She added: “It hurts every time he goes for a serve, and large doses of ibuprofen haven’t had an effect.” But Rune said he was back to 100 per cent ahead of last week’s China Open. “I’ve been struggling with my back for a while now,” he said before beating Auger-Aliassime.
