Exclusive: Boris Becker confirms he will be coaching Holger Rune for the remainder of 2023 – ‘A very good fit’

Boris Becker has announced that he will become Holger Rune’s coach and believes the relationship is a “very good fit”.

Now Rune is set to work with former world No. 1 Becker, who won six Grand Slam titles in his career, with the pair set to official begin their working relationship at Swiss Indoors Basel, which gets underway on October 25.

“It makes me a little proud that he asked me. The contact has existed for a long time. Now it was a very good fit.

“My calendar allows it and I have always been interested in Holger because he is on the tennis court with so much commitment and temperament.

“Holger then invited me to a training week in Monte-Carlo. I also had a long chat there with his mother Aneke and his performance coach Lapo Becherini. The three of us are responsible for Holger from now on. Unfortunately, I can’t be at the tournament in Stockholm this week because of previously arranged appointments.

“But I will be there in Basel at the latest, and afterwards, I will play Paris-Bercy with Holger – and hopefully help him to qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin. That is the big goal and that is the task.”

Becker believes he will be able to help Rune on the mental side of the game.

He said: “Holger is a rough diamond that needs polishing. I like his emotional outbursts. I have coached a player before, Novak Djokovic, who was sometimes not quite himself on the court, but that is allowed.

“The question is: how quickly do you find your way back into the match, are you focused again? In the end, it’s not about sending your mother out of the stands, but winning the match. I love tennis and when one of the best 20-year-olds in the world asks me if I’d like to coach him… anyone who says no doesn’t have much to do with the sport.

“Of course, it’s all about attitude, even if it’s so easy to say that. But it is the main reason why tennis matches are won or lost. For me, it’s about: what is Holger’s motivation and the reason to go to China, for example. Is it just to win the first round or the tournament, is it for ranking points?

“That has to be discussed and it has to be very clear what the motivation is. I have some ideas on what can be improved. It starts with attitude, mentality, psyche – and I have a little idea about that.”

Becker has previously worked with Djokovic from late 2013 to late 2016. During that time, Djokovic won six of his 24 Grand Slam titles, including his first French Open title.

Becker says initially himself and Rune will work together until the end of the year before deciding whether to continue in 2024.

He said: “I met Holger when he was 15, 16 years old. That was at the ATP Finals, when I was still coaching Novak Djokovic. Holger was our training partner. That’s how long I’ve known him and his mother. We have always stayed in conversation. And now the question came: ‘Can you help me?’ And my answer was: ‘Yes, let me visit you in Monte-Carlo.’ He then talked about the rest of the year. That was okay with me and I freed up time for Basel, Paris and, if we make it, Turin.

“After that, we will sit down and think about whether the tournaments were successful, whether he enjoyed it, whether I liked it. We’ll now take on these three tournaments. After that, we’ll decide whether the cooperation has a future and whether we’ll go into 2024 together – or was it a great experience and we’ll go our separate ways. There’s no point in signing a two-year contract now when you’ve only been cooperating for a week. If you are successful, you usually stay together, no matter what the contract says. If not, everyone goes their own way again. That is the status quo.

“We need close contact, because I can only help him if I know how he’s doing. That’s not only true on the pitch, but also in his private life. Does he have worries, does he have a flight of fancy? All this has an impact on his performance in training. I have to know the reasons. Being a tennis coach always means being also a tennis psychologist.”

Becker does not believe Rune is at a point in his career where he can become world No. 1 overnight, but believes the 20-year-old has great potential to reach the very top.

“It would be b******* to claim now that Holger will become No. 1 or win the French Open,” he said.

“The fact is that he is one of the best young players in the world. He plays in a concert with Alcaraz and [Jannik] Sinner or soon [Ben] Shelton and [Sebastian] Korda. Now the question is: what kind of team does he have? He has me, he has his performance coach. That’s enormously important, because nowadays people train very differently than they used to.

“But the most important person in the team is mother Aneke; without her, nothing works. I’m on the phone with her four times a day at the moment to find out exactly how Holger is doing. It’s all a puzzle that we have to put together so that the boy plays his best tennis.

“My ambition is to find the best Holger Rune. To do that, the tournament schedule has to fit. If he plays every week, he will eventually get tired.

“That’s why I have to have a big say in this, according to the motto: ‘Here we have to insert a training week, here we have to regenerate, and maybe you go on holiday with your girlfriend for 10 days’. That is part of the planning, because in the end, I am jointly responsible for the success.”