Holger Rune will be without the services of his new coach, Boris Becker, at the 2024 Australian Open, with the German great taking a lead role in the television booth instead.
At the turn of the year, it was revealed that Rune had hired a temporary coach – Kenneth Carlsen – to fill the void left by Becker and his newly-appointed second coach, Severin Luthi, for the ATP 250 tournament in Brisbane.
Becker and Luthi did not travel to Australia in the first week of January, but it was reported they would do so before the Australian Open commenced. It was unclear why that was the case, but an extended holiday break was rumored to be the reason.
Luthi has since joined Rune’s camp in Melbourne well ahead of schedule. Rune was a runner-up in his first tournament of the new season in Brisbane and has since flown to Melbourne, where he has been training under the gaze of Roger Federer’s former coach.
Becker, meanwhile, was nowhere near Melbourne despite his active status on social media. He had been on a family vacation in Africa throughout December, visiting her girlfriend’s homeland in the island nation São Tomé and Príncipe and touring around Ghana to promote tennis.
And now it has emerged that Becker will skip coaching duties at the Australian Open and take a starring role as a pundit for Eurosport, one of the official broadcasters for the tournament in the European continent.
Becker’s role on the mic is something he has done with distinction after retiring from the sport, and he was previously a lead analyst and co-commentator for BBC during the annual coverage of Wimbledon.
Interestingly, Becker’s involvement in Eurosport this month will awkwardly unite him with ATP player Nick Kyrgios, who has been confirmed as part of Eurosport’s star-studded lineup of pundits.
The pair have feuded on social media in the past month, with Kyrgios infamously opining that the former Wimbledon champion would struggle to compete in the current modern setup in tennis.
Becker was philosophical in his response and criticized Kyrgios’ credibility, to which the controversial Australian mocked him for the time he spent in prison for flouting insolvency rules and hiding assets.
It will be intriguing to see whether there will be a new twist in this bitter feud or whether the two men will let bygones be bygones and clear their spat.
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