Tennis News: Holger Rune, Nick Kyrgios, Novak Djokovic and Michael Jordan

Holger Rune burns through coaches. He added Boris Becker and Severin Luthi in 2023 but now those coaches are gone. With Becker, Rune saw an uptick in his form in late 2023, but Rune hasn't won any titles since he took home the trophy for the Munich Open last April. That was only a 250 event.

Rune has played in three tournaments already this year. He made the final at the Brisbane International to open 2024, but lost to Grigor Dimitrov. The Dane was bounced in the second round at the Australian Open. Rune made the semifinals at the Montpellier Open but retired down 3-6 1-4 due to an arm injury. Or he just knew he was going to lose and he quit.

Something is clearly going on with Rune. He comes across as somewhat of a spoiled child in season two of the Netflix docuseries Break Point. His mother seems to be in control of his career and all he does. Maybe the docuseries simply shows him differently than he really is, but at least an overbearing mother and too strong-headed of an approach to tennis by Rune would explain him churning through coaches.

Holger Rune churns through coaches and the Novak Djokovic and Michael Jordan comparison

Tennis commentator Mark Petchey recently said on the Tennis Channel that Rune losing coaches so much is odd and Petchey found it odder that both Becker and Luthi had the same reason for leaving Rune. Both said they didn't have time to commit to the project that is Rune. Or as Petchey said, "If you’ve ever been in this situation where you’ve gone to coach a player, one of the first conversations you have is how much time you have to give, so I don’t know if everyone’s trying to cover up for another underlying reason which is what it feels like."

In completely different news, recently French player Richard Gasquet compared Novak Djokovic to the NBA's Michael Jordan. The argument makes sense, right? Both Djokovic and Jordan are arguably the two best players ever in their respective sports. But Nick Kyrgios dismissed Gasquet comparison and added another.

In an Instagram post by Eurosport, they quote Kyrgios as saying, "No. (Djokovic) is LeBron (James). LeBron is still doing this at 40. Jordan stopped a lot earlier and wasn't as dominant."

I know that Kyrgios is a huge NBA fan and he is knowledgeable about basketball, but he is off as far as Jordan and James. Both are great, sure, but Jordan came back from his second retirement and played for the Washington Wizards at age 38 and 39. As far as dominant, maybe Kyrgios means player production. As far as leadership, Jordan won NBA championships in six of the seven years he played between his ages of 27 and 34. That is dominant.

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