“Nice chat about Christmas” - Boris Becker jokes about his roundtable talk with Novak Djokovic and Holger Rune ahead of ATP Finals

Boris Becker recently shared a hilarious take on his roundtable talk with Novak Djokovic and Holger Rune ahead of the 2023 ATP Finals in Turin, Italy.

Djokovic and Rune have been drawn into the same quartet, the Green Group, at the year-end championships. The duo will square off on Monday, November 13, to kickstart their round-robin leg of the tournament.

The duo have so far played four times against each other with the head-to-head tied at 2-2. They first met at the 2021 US Open for an opening-round tie, which the Serb won.

Rune went one step ahead by winning the next two matchups against the 24-time Grand Slam champion. He defeated the Serb in the 2022 Paris Masters final and at the 2023 Italian Open in the quarterfinals.

Djokovic hit back at the Dane with a victory in their most recent battle at the 2023 Paris Masters. He defeated his opponent 7-5, 6-7(3), 6-4 en route to winning his seventh title in Paris.

Notably, Rune is now training under German tennis legend Boris Becker, who helped Djokovic win six Grand Slam titles between 2014 and 2016 as a head coach.

Ahead of their fifth clash, the trio sat down for a brief chat during a media event at the ATP Finals. Rune, on his Instagram account, posted a photo from their interaction. Becker later shared the same image on his Instagram account, writing:

"Nice chat about Christmas."

Boris Becker's Instagram story

---

Novak Djokovic: "Holger Rune has been playing much better in the last few weeks ever since he started working with Boris Becker"

Internazionali BNL D'Italia 2023 - Day Ten

Novak Djokovic compared his fourth meeting with Holger Rune to his second. The duo competed against each other in the final of the 2022 Paris Masters. Rune defeated the Serb 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 to win his first Masters 1000 title.

"Quite similar match to last year's final to be honest. Was really anybody's game every set. You know I played an awful tiebreak in the second set, to be honest probably the worst one this year but again credit to him for staying mentally tough and playing solid from baseline," the Serb said in his post-match interview.

"We have kind of similar game, we both move well, defend well and kind of all-round players," he added.

The 24-time Grand Slam champion suggested Rune's graph is on the rise since he joined hands with Boris Becker. He said:

"Rune's been, I think, playing much better in the last few weeks, ever since he started working with Boris. It was strange to see Boris in the opposing box but again I knew it might happen already this week. You know I wish him, obviously Holger and him, the best in Turin."

Holger Rune was working with Lars Christensen and Patrick Mouratoglou before he roped in Becker as the head coach. The Dane's first tournament under Becker yielded better results as he finished as a quarterfinalist at the Swiss Indoors in Basel after a flurry of early exits from tournaments in the recent past.