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Roger Federer's former coach, Ivan Ljubicic, had a humorous view on Holger Rune's recent revelation about competing without a hat.
Holger Rune came out on top in the fourth round of the Swiss Indoors Basel on Thursday, October 26. He defeated Sebastian Baez in two sets with a score line of 7-6 (2), 6-1 to secure his spot in the quarterfinal against Tomas Etcheverry.
The Dane had earlier defeated the Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic 1-6, 7-5, 6-3 in a three-set match in the third round of the ATP 500 tournament. Holger Rune, who is known for wearing his cap backwards with a tuft of hair poking out the gap, was apparently seen competing without his cap off in both rounds. After dropping the first set in the opening round against Kecmanovic on Tuesday, October 24, he removed his cap.
The missing hat was a topic of discussion in the on-court interview with Holger Rune after his fourth round victory. Rune, the sixth seed, explained that he had to constantly keep adjusting it because of the intense heat.
“Yeah it’s a good question, so it’s very, you know for those that don’t know it’s extremely hot in this arena so yesterday after the first set there was like I was sweating a lot and you know I had to control it all the time so I was like you know why not let’s play without it and see what happens, he said.
The 20-year-old further stated that playing without his hat on was working in his favor with positive results in both the rounds in Basel clarifying his stance of not being superstitious though. He then in jest, expressed a desire to still have hair after turning fifty.
“You know it’s nothing I am superstitious but I mean it’s working pretty well, I get that…you know it’s good to get some air for the hair as well if you wanna have hair when you’re fifty, so yeah, I am enjoying myself”, Rune added.
Commenting on X to Holger Rune's post-match statements, Roger Federer’s former coach and former tennis player Ivan Ljubicic tweeted:
“Ok. I will start taking my hat off too then”.
The former Croatian player, who coached Federer between 2016 until his retirement in 2022, helped the Swiss add three more major titles to his illustrious trophy cabinet. He is credited for improving Federer’s game, making it more offensive and improving his backhand too.
Holger Rune wishes to crack the Djokovic code from Boris Becker
Holger Rune is hoping that his new coaching partnership with Boris Becker would provide him access to some of the World No.1 Novak Djokovic’s playing tactics. In the three years between 2013 and 2016, the German tennis great coached the Serb to six major titles.
Notably, Holger Rune has beaten the 24-tile Grand Slam champion in two of their three prior confrontations, both of which came at ATP Masters 1000 tournaments - one in 2022 in Paris, and the other in Rome this year.
“It’s great to learn from players like Boris and from Rafa Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak. It would be good to steal a bit from what they did. They got so many things right”, Rune said on Saturday, October 21, as he prepared for the start of the ATP Swiss Indoors in Basel.
