Boris Becker has announced he has stepped down from his role as the head coach of Holger Rune “with immediate effect” less than four months after joining the Dane’s team.
The six-time Grand Slam champion explained “professional and private responsibilities” prevented him from being available to work with Rune enough for their partnership to be successful.
This comes just a week after Rune parted ways with Swiss coach Severin Luthi, who had only started working with him in December ahead of the 2024 season.
Luthi, who coached Roger Federer from 2007 until his retirement in 2022, was with Rune at the 2024 Australian Open last month, where the Dane was upset by French wildcard Arthur Cazaux in the second round.
Becker did not travel with the world No 7 for the Australian Open and instead worked for Eurosport in Germany as an analyst during the event.
Rune appointed Becker as his coach in October and the arrival of the former world No 1 helped him bounce back from a run of 10 losses in 11 matches from Wimbledon in July to Stockholm in October.
The 20-year-old reached the semi-finals of the Swiss Indoors in Basel and the quarter-finals of the Paris Masters to secure his qualification for the ATP Finals in Turin, which had looked uncertain.
On his debut at the year-end championships, Rune was eliminated in the group stage after losing two of his three matches, but produced encouraging displays in three-set defeats to Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner.
In a post on Twitter / X, Becker revealed he had brought an end to his brief spell as Rune’s coach due to his inability to spend enough time working with the 20-year-old.
“I would like to inform you that I will step down as the head coach of Holger Rune with immediate effect,” the German wrote.
“We started this partnership with the initial goal to reach the ATP Finals end of last year but moving forward I realised that in order for this to be successful, I would need to be available for Holger much more than I can.
“Due to professional and private responsibilities, I can’t give Holger what he needs now. I wish him only the very best and I’m always going to be his No 1 fan. I truly appreciated this journey together.”
Becker coached world No 1 Djokovic between 2014 and 2016 – during which time the great Serbian won six Grand Slam titles and 14 ATP Masters 1000 tournaments.
In an interview with Danish publication Ekstra Bladet last week, Aneke Rune divulged that Luthi would no longer be working with her son.
“I just want to inform you that from now on Holger will only have Boris and Kenneth in his coaching staff,” she explained.
“Don’t want to make a big deal out of it, but the timing with Severin was clearly not right. It would be too few weeks for Severin to be able to cover for the continuity that Holger needs.”
Rune’s mother had outlined that Danish coach and former ATP player Kenneth Carlsen would now take on a more central role in the coaching team alongside Becker.
However, Becker’s departure means Carlsen is now Rune’s only coach and what looked like a formidable coaching lineup has swiftly been broken up.
