Rune’s Mom Explains Split With Federer’s Former Coach Luthi

Holger Rune parted ways with Roger Federer’s former coach, Severin Luthi, and his mother now explained why it came to that.

Before this year even started, Rune made headlines by starting to work with Roger Federer’s former coach, Severin Luthi. He joined a team already spearheaded by Boris Becker, so many people were excited about what it all might look like.

He looked fine at the start of the year but suffered a shocking loss at the Australian Open, which might have already implied some issues. The issues certainly exist, as confirmed by his mother, Aneke Rune, who recently was a guest on the Craig Shapiro Tennis Podcast.

“Maybe also we were a little naive, also a little you know starstruck like ‘Oh Roger [Federer], 20 Grand Slams, it’s not a problem to bring in a new coach’.”

“Clearly, it was naive. I think if you come in and you want to implement a lot of changes in the routines that the player normally do, this is great because if you’re No. 7 [Holger Rune’s current rank], you’re not the best in the world. So, you need to do things differently in order to improve.”

According to Aneke, the sudden changes and new ideas created more problems than they solved, and the Australian Open loss was a clear example of that.

The split with Luthi would come pretty quickly, but also that with Boris Becker, which was even more shocking. Many assumed it was a perfect match, and it looked like that for a while.

“What is tough here is starting to do the things at a Grand Slam. If we look back, then it was not the right timing to introduce new stuff because the player is more nervous at Grand Slams.”