Holger Rune storms into the quarter-finals in Basel giving credit to his ‘team’ as new coach Boris Becker takes charge  

Holger Rune stands a chance to win his first ATP 500 tournament this season.

Holger Rune storms into the quarter-finals in Basel giving credit to his ‘team’ as new coach Boris Becker takes charge  

(L) Holger Rune; (R) Boris Becker (Images via The Independent)

Danish tennis star Holger Rune seems to have found the lost mojo that had resulted in three back-to-back early exits for him after the Dane returned to the tour. The Dane entered the quarterfinals at the ATP 500 event in Basel on the back of two clinical wins. Rune attributed his success to ‘teamwork’.  

It is worth mentioning that Holger Rune crashed out of the China Open, the Shanghai Masters, and then the Stockholm Open. This led to the Dane making changes to his coaching team. Rune onboarded Boris Becker as his coach and the move seems to have worked its magic straightaway. 

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The 20-year-old Dane beat Miomir Kecmanovic 1-6, 7-5, 6-3 in the first round. In the second round, Rune met Sebastian Baez and sealed an emphatic win over the Argentine. Rune beat Baez 7-6 (2), 6-1 to seal a spot in the quarterfinals. The Dane will face another Argentine, Tomas Martin Etcheverry, in the third round. 

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After this quarterfinal qualification, Rune attributed his success at the tournament so far to “teamwork”. Rune reposted a clip from Tennis TV that showed the Dane’s winning moment and his coaching team, including Boris Becker, celebrating it. Rune wrote “teamwork” in the caption and used right on target emoji at the beginning. 

Holger Rune keeps the ATP Finals hopes alive

After a series of bad performances, stars seem to be aligning in Rune’s favor, who has kept his hopes to qualify for the ATP Finals in Turin still alive. With this quarterfinal qualification in Basel, Rune has ensured at least 80 crucial points. If he goes on to win the tournament eventually, Rune might end up with close to 37000 points.

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Holger Rune (Image via Eurosport)

Apart from his match result, two more results favored the Dane as two players really close to him in the singles race lost their matches. American Taylor Fritz and Norwegian Casper Rudd lost their respective second-round matches and crashed out of the ATP 500 tournament. This means that Rune will maintain his lead over these two.

Also, even Hubert Hurkacz does not pose a threat to the Dane. Now, Rune will have only one thing on his mind and that is to go as deep as possible in this tournament as well as at the Paris Masters. Talking about the players to have already qualified for the year-end tournament, Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev, Jannik Sinner, and Andrey Rublev are there. The rest three spots are still up for grabs.

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