He said it was the first thing Becker did with him when they started working together, as Becker tried to teach Djokovic about the importance of mental clarity, strategy, and thinking through a series of moves on the chess board or in a tennis point before the action unfolds. Novak Djokovic saw success in his time with Boris Becker (Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images)ĭjokovic had a deja vu moment recently when he spotted Rune and Becker playing chess. “Might be for the blood flow for the legs,” Rune joked about Becker’s stand-up routine after recording a quick, three-game walkover victory Tuesday over Stefanos Tsitsipas, who quit with back pain. The six-time Grand Slam champion leans over the railing, clapping Rune on, delivering a few key words of encouragement - “keep it going”, “nice and easy”, “beautiful serve” - imposing every bit of that big body and unavoidable presence known as “Boom Boom” on the action unfolding just a few feet away.

There are times in Turin when the pregnant quiet of the coming serve has taken hold, when the players are in a position to resume play, when it seems that nearly all of the roughly 15,000 spectators at the Pala Alpitour have taken their seats - except the 6ft 3in ginger-haired guy in the black Puma training suit who was once one of the world’s most recognizable athletes. Becker stands through the breaks between so many points and changeovers, staring at his latest project, trying to make eye contact and convey the message of the moment.

Then there is Becker, who, just three tournaments into his stint with Rune, is coming across as a kind of tennis coaching version of a helicopter parent - even though Rune sort of already has one of those in his mother, Aneke, the main tennis voice in his life throughout his childhood and still just a few seats away from Becker during her son’s matches. Boris Becker with Holger Rune in Turin (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)

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