The collaboration between the former Federer coach and the Danish top ten player ends surprisingly quickly. Rune’s dominant mother may have played a role.
Holger Rune with his mother Aneke at a tournament in Rome in 2023.
Antonietta Baldassarre / Imago
In December, Holger Rune and his team surprised the tennis circus with the news that Severin Lüthi was joining the 20-year-old Dane’s coaching staff. Immediately before the Swiss Indoors, he had already brought Boris Becker into his team.
Just over a month later, this message is already outdated. Rune and Lüthi agreed on Sunday to end the work with immediate effect. Severin Lüthi told the NZZ on Wednesday: “There’s actually not much to say. We tried it, and both sides saw relatively quickly that it wasn’t working as we had imagined. Then it is better to draw a line than to continue for another three or four months.”
The disappointing outcome of the Australian Open may have contributed to the quick separation. The first Grand Slam tournament of the season ended for the seventh in the world rankings in the second round against Frenchman Arthur Cazaux (ATP 122). It was a bitter disappointment for the ambitious, self-confident Dane, who says of himself: “If I play well, then I’m better than everyone else.”
Rune has a reputation for being uncontrolled on and off the pitch
After his victory at the Master 1000 tournament in Paris-Bercy in October 2022, Rune made it into the top ten for the first time. By late summer 2023, he had improved in the ranking to 4th place. Rune’s talent is undisputed. At the same time, however, he is haunted by the reputation of being uncontrolled on and off the pitch. In an interview before the Swiss Indoors in Basel, he told the NZZ last November: “I need someone to steer me in the right direction.”
The experience of Becker and Lüthi should help him. The former Wimbledon winner, who previously looked after Novak Djokovic for three years, personally campaigned to bring Lüthi and his experience from working with Roger Federer into the team. During the Australian Open, the 56-year-old said on Eurosport: “If you can have Lüthi, then you have to grab it. He’s probably at least as good as a coach, if not better, than me.”
Short assignment: Severin Lüthi was only Holger Rune’s coach at the Australian Open.
Joly Victor / Imago
It wasn’t competence problems between Becker and Lüthi that led to the quick end of the collaboration between the Bernese and the Danish top player. Apparently Rune’s mother Aneke found it difficult to withdraw. In the tennis scene she has a reputation for being overprotective and shielding her son. Rune himself describes her on the ATP website together with his youth coach Lars Christensen as the “biggest inspiration” in his career.
In the aforementioned NZZ interview he said about her: “She accompanied me on my travels since my early youth and is still with me almost everywhere today. She has a very good eye and sees things on the pitch that others don’t notice.”
It is not unnatural on the tennis tour to have a parent as a close reference person in your environment. The former Swiss top player Martina Hingis was accompanied by her mother Melanie Molitor well into her career. Ivan Bencic was his daughter Belinda’s closest confidante for a long time. And other top players like Stefanos Tsitsipas also keep one or even both parents close to them. His father Apostolos is officially still the first coach of the now 25-year-old Greek.
Jannik Sinner and thanks to his parents, who didn’t put him under pressure.
Youtube
The fact that it is difficult for parents to let go of their children is not a tennis-specific phenomenon. But if they move around in public like top athletes, that makes it doubly difficult to withdraw.
The speech of the Italian Jannik Sinner, who thanked his parents on the court on Sunday after winning the Australian Open in Melbourne for always supporting him, should also be seen from this perspective. «I wish everyone could have parents like mine. They always let me decide for myself what I wanted to do. They never put any pressure on me.”
Rune is known for his frequent trainer wear
Aneke Rune is considered extremely dominant in the tennis scene. It is attributed to her that personnel castling often occurs in her son’s environment. Last year, Rune worked twice with the Frenchman Patrick Mouratoglou, who had previously looked after Serena Williams, among others. After the second separation, Aneke Rune told the Danish “Ekstra Bladet”: “It just didn’t work out. Now it is important that Holger finds the right team that he will have for a long time. He decided that it wasn’t with Patrick.” There were “ego conflicts” between Mouratoglou and Holger Rune’s long-term coach Lars Christensen.
Christensen is still in the Dane’s team, as is Becker until further notice. For Severin Lüthi, his time with the Dane is up after just a few weeks. «I’m not leaving Holger with a grudge. He undoubtedly has great potential. But the timing wasn’t ideal and so it just didn’t work out.”
Working with Rune must have been a shock for the 48-year-old from Bern. From 2007 he had worked faithfully in the shadow of Federer and changing coaches such as Stefan Edberg, Paul Annacone and most recently Ivan Ljubicic. Federer’s parents, Lynette and Robert, had always stayed out of work.
Lüthi continues to coach the Swiss Davis Cup team, which will face Holland next weekend. He leaves it open whether he will return to the tour with another player. After the experiences he had with Holger Rune, he will at least think twice.