By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Tuesday October 24, 2023
The Dane snapped a slump with an impressive comeback win over Miomir Kecmanovic in Basel.
Photo Source: TTV
The Boris Becker has begun for Holger Rune and the 20-year-old Dane is enjoying having the six-time Grand Slam champion at his side at the Swiss Indoors.
Becker was in Basel on Tuesday, cheering for his charge at every turn as Rune navigated a tricky encounter with Serbia’s Miomir Kecmanovic and came away with a 1-6, 7-5, 6-3 win.
“It's been great working so far with Boris,” top-seeded Rune said after improving his record to 39-20 on the season. “I learned a lot and I think I did some of the things that we worked on today in the match. I stayed there and I did the things that we were talking about, and I'm just super happy that I stayed on the court and managed to turn it around.”
Rune matched his personal best 39 wins from 2022 and ended a streak of five consecutive losses against players ranked outside of the Top 50 against the 55th-ranked 24 year old.
It looked grim at the start, with Kecmanovic racing through the opening set against the flat-footed Copenhagen native, then edging ahead by a set and break at 4-3 in the third.
But fiery Rune rallied, converting his fourth break point of the eighth game of the second set to level at four-all and winning nine of the final 13 games to clinch a much-needed triumph.
Rune had lost eight of his last nine matches, dating back to his quarterfinal loss to Carlos Alcaraz in the Wimbledon quarterfinals, and saw his hold on a qualification spot at this year’s Nitto ATP Finals in Turin dwindle to a slim lead over the competition.
But he averted further crisis on Tuesday, setting a round of 16 clash with Argentina’s Sebastian Baez.
Rune is currently in eighth place in the Turin standings, and trailed closely by No.9 Taylor Fritz, who is 90 points behind the Dane ahead of his first-round clash with Max Purcell at Basel.
Casper Ruud, the No.2 seed at Basel, is 330 points behind – he faces Alexander Bublik in round one on Wednesday.