Boris Becker has praised his new charge Holger Rune in a revelation that he has “never seen a player who can play tennis so quickly” after Carlos Alcaraz.
Describing Rune’s pedigree, the legendary German was in awe of the Rune’s arm strength and strong hand-eye coordination which enables him to hit the ball early and thus exerting pressure on the opponents by taking time away from them.
Under the tutelage of Becker, the Dane reached the semifinals of Swiss Indoors in Basel and quarterfinal of the Paris Masters to secure his berth for the season-ending ATP Finals in Turin.
Showing up at his maiden year-end championships, Rune was knocked out in the round-robin stage after losing two of his three matches against Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic – both came in three-sets.
Talking on Eurosport’s Das Gelbe vom Ball podcast, Becker emphasized on the importance of him being able to serve honest criticism on his protégé.
“I have to have permission to say to him: ‘You really played crap today’. [He has to] be able to endure and tolerate that, because that’s the only way there can be progress,” said Becker.
“If I told him after a lost match that he was unlucky and was the better player, then I would be the wrong coach.”
The 6-time Grand Slam champion identified a key quality he thinks the 20-year-old possesses, while acknowledging his young rival Alcaraz is the “benchmark” in that department.
“I’ve seen a lot of matches, but apart from Carlos Alcaraz, I’ve never seen a player who can play tennis so quickly. He has such power in his arm and such good hand-eye coordination, which allows him to hit the ball early – and thus develop incredible pressure,” the three-time Wimbledon champion assessed.
“Alcaraz has done this very successfully together with his coach for two years. That is the benchmark.”
Becker also divulged he had placed “tennis ban” on Rune before ahead of the start of 2024 season due to him being “absolute tennis crazy in a positive sense.”
“Every now and then I have to say a serious word to him: ‘Holger, enough, no more. You’ve already trained for four hours today, the fifth one won’t do any good.’ The other way around it would be more difficult if you had to keep motivating the player to play more. With Holger I have to slow down more,” said Becker.
“We will then meet on December 4th in Monte Carlo for hopefully the first tennis training session, then the preparation on the court will begin.”
The German former World No.1 coached Djokovic between 2014 and 2016 and under his tutelage guided the Serbian to seal 6 majors and 14 ATP Masters 1000 tournaments.