Holger Rune bursts into tears on court and tells physio 'I heard my ankle pop'

An emotional Holger Rune was forced to retire from his match against Ugo Humbert at the Nordic Open after suffering what appeared to be a serious injury. The young Dane was on course to beat his French opponent and reach the final, having breezed through the opening set. However, he ultimately withdrew from the contest after a bizarre couple of minutes ended with him in tears.

During the fifth game of set two, Humbert saw a ball kid move out of the corner of his eye as he prepared to hit a short forehand. He ended up floating the ball back into the court, appearing to stop the point. Rune, however, moved forward to put the ball away and give himself the opportunity to break Humbert's serve.

The latter complained to the umpire, arguing that a let should have been called because of the interruption. She did not see what happened, though, and was left with no choice but to use her own judgement.

It forced a delay of around two minutes as Rune simply waited for the next point to begin, cooling down all the while. When play resumed, the 22-year-old appeared to injure himself while scrambling to return the ball.

He immediately clutched the lower part of his left leg and signalled to his box that he would be unable to continue. Rune burst into tears as he limped to the side of the court before elevating his injured limb on his racket bag.

The physio was quickly called to assess the damage, with Rune heard saying: "I heard my ankle pop." His team also looked emotional in the stands, given just how serious the injury appeared to be.

Rune was unable to bear weight on his affected leg from that point and had to be helped off the court. Humbert kept it classy with a brief message to Rune in his post-match interview, saying: "I don't want to talk too much, I feel sorry for Holger."

The true nature of his injury is not yet clear, with scans likely to be needed to discover the full extent of the problem. If it turns out to be a full or partial rupture of the Achilles tendon, Rune is likely to be sidelined for several months.

He was already playing through a hamstring injury before the unfortunate incident, admitting earlier this week that he was in pain.

"I'm very happy that I managed to finish the match, honestly, you know," said Rune after beating Tomas Martin Etcheverry in the quarter-finals of the Nordic Open.

"I couldn't have done it without you great fans, so honestly, thank you very much you really helped me a lot today. I was really struggling, as you saw with my left leg, but you know the energy from you guys was very special."