Exclusive: Holger Rune targets world No. 1 spot following Paris win – ‘That’s my goal, why not next year?’

Holger Rune has revealed his “goal” is to be ranked world No. 1 following a successful year, which he capped off by winning the Paris Masters for the first time.

Speaking exclusively to Eurosport at the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin, which Rune is not involved in, the 19-year-old admitted his target was to challenge for the world No. 1 spot next year.

“That’s my goal, to be world No. 1,” Rune revealed. “Yeah, why not next year? Let’s see.”

Rune’s Paris Masters win helped him break into the top ten in the ATP rankings, while fellow teenager Carlos Alcaraz currently sits top of the leaderboard.

The Dane’s three career titles have all come this year as he has taken “gigantic steps” in his game, rising from 1136th-ranked in 2019.

He won the Bavarian Championship in April, and after enduring defeat against Marc-Andrea Husler in the Sofia Open final, bounced back with victory at the Stockholm Open in a straight-sets win over Stefanos Tsitsipas.

Rune ended a “super good” year in Paris with a shock win over 21-time Grand Slam winner Djokovic, as he looks ahead to 2023.

He said: “I’ve been working every day, and every tournament I try to get better and the small things have been improved a little bit over the year, and now here at the end of the year everything has been going, like, super good so I’m super pleased and happy about that.”

Despite his success on court, Rune failed to earn a spot at the ATP Finals in Turin, and said it would be “tough to predict” how he would have done if he had made the cut.

“We cannot predict the future,” he said. “I would have been super excited just to go out there and play, [for the] first time here at Nitto Finals, it would be an awesome experience.

“I would honestly take it like any other tournament, just to take one match at a time and see how far it could go, but it’s tough to predict.”