Meanwhile, Rune himself admitted that he knew Djokovic would change things up to try and lessen the advantage of any extra insight he had from Becker. The 20-year-old said: “We talked of course a little bit before the match on the game plan and what to do and his opinion on Novak. [Becker] obviously knows him pretty well but I didn’t manage to beat him so we didn’t do a good enough job if you can say so.
“I also said that you can’t expect Novak to play the same like he did last time so of course he was going to change something and that’s also one of the reasons why he’s a big champion. I was close, it was a close match, big battle.” It has still been a positive two weeks for Rune as he reached the semi-final in Basel and the quarter-final Paris after adding Becker to his camp.
Between Wimbledon and Basel, the world No 7 won just one of his seven matches and he credited the German for helping him rediscover his best form. Rune continued: “I had a tough last four, five months of my season so it’s never easy to turn it around just like that so definitely he helped me a lot to turn it around. I came almost from nothing, [losing in] first rounds, and to be able to play some of my high level and compete with Novak is a big confidence boost because if we had that match like three months ago, I would probably lose two sets straight.”
