Boris Becker is always there. For conversations in the hotel, around the matches and even during interviews – the German tennis idol hardly leaves his new protégé Holger Rune’s side at the ATP Finals in Turin.
And Becker can already point to his first success with the noticeable improvement in form of the Danish top talent.
“He takes care of me and protects me above all,” said Rune at the prestigious end of the year to the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet: “It’s nice to have him by my side when I do things off the pitch.”
The chemistry between the 55-year-old six-time Grand Slam winner and the skyscraper from the Copenhagen area is perfect. Since Becker became Rune’s new coach, the 20-year-old’s first crisis seems to have been overcome.
Beating the best players at the most important tournaments – that is the declared goal of the youngster, who always causes offense with his self-confident, rebellious nature.
“I like strong personalities,” Becker recently told the French newspaper L’Equipe: “I like Holger’s aggressiveness. I was an aggressive player myself. I also like the way he expresses himself on the court, he’s a real fighter, a hothead.” To be very good, you also have to be a little crazy, added the three-time Wimbledon winner.
However, even an aspiring and self-confident athlete like Rune is sometimes plagued by doubts and can lose his rhythm. The Munich winner fell into a hole after his Wimbledon exit in the quarterfinals against Carlos Alcaraz, who was the same age, a situation that ultimately led to Becker’s involvement. In October in Basel they both formed a team for the first time at a tournament.
“Boris has experience on a completely different level because he has the experience as a player,” Rune’s mother and manager Aneke Rune told the Danish broadcaster TV2 in Turin, recounting a situation on the sidelines of the finals.
There were things running around in Rune’s head, “and then they met in the hotel lobby to talk about it,” said Aneke Rune: “It’s amazing what experience can do.”
2023-11-16 16:01:46
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