The Shake-up in Holger Rune’s Camp and a Shift in Tennis’s Mentality

The Danish 20-year-old is making big changes to start the year. Plus, tracking the evolution in player outlook.

Hey everyone …

• Here’s the latest Served podcast. Thanks everyone for your support. This has been a lot of fun so far and the response has been gratifying and humbling. Feel free to send topics, questions, critiques, etc. (Andy Roddick and I are Midwesterners, men of thick skin and thin ego.)

• Thrilled to learn that The Inner Game of Tennis is being re-released this summer, with a new introduction by Bill Gates.

• You have likely seen this video, created by the ATP. There is so much to like here, not least how committed the players are to the bit. (Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic and Gael Monfils possess almost freakishly strong acting chops and comic register.) What makes this doubly (triply?) effective is the underlying reminder that part of the beauty of tennis and sports: the unscripted, unchoreographed, anything-can-happen-ness. Bravo … give that team a raise. Or at least a budget to do more.

Onward …

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Hi Jon…are the recent departures in Holger Rune’s camp just a timing coincidence, or is he becoming a tainted commodity?

Thanks, Kelly G., Louisville, KY

• I’m inclined to say “no” and “no.” As Roddick put it on the podcast, no player enters the year intending to make wholesale changes a few weeks in.

Before the latest round of churn, the inimitable Craig Shapiro spoke with Holger’s mother Aneke Rune. And … yeah. There’s clearly a lot going on here. Extra, as the kids say. This camp could use an organizational psychologist to sort out roles, logistics and workplace dynamics.

All that said, I’ve always had a hard time ginning up outrage for Rune. What’s the worst thing you can say about him? He’s unapologetically ambitious? He sometimes acts his age (20)? He gets more bothered than he should by yutzes and putzes on social media? I see a talented player making his way. This is not a critique, but he is flanked by a hyperattentive mother who is not exactly the Danish equivalent of a shrinking violet.

He’ll age and mature. He’ll make more changes. IMG, newly hired, will play management consultant and professionalize the operation. He’ll be fine.

Boris Becker and Rune parted ways in early February :: Mike Frey/USA TODAY Sports

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Would love final set 10 pt TB rule all year. Thoughts?
@spin4serv

• You guys perhaps saw the news of the new ESPN-Fox-Warner Bros. streaming service. I asked a media consultant friend how this might impact tennis and Tennis Channel. He pointed out that tennis has some real selling points (It’s global. It has a strong female audience. It has a lot of “tonnage.” It’s found favor with gamblers, for better (bettor) or worse.) The sport also has a huge drawback: no fixed times. A best-of-three match can end in under an hour. It can easily exceed three hours. This is a challenge for presentation.

A 10-point tiebreak in lieu of a final set—essentially, doubles format—would greatly help with planning and media friendliness. It would preserve players’ bodies— in a sport where injured athletes are not paid. It would help hold fans’ attention. It would also fundamentally change the sport. It would blunt the current advantage held by the best-conditioned players. It would not find favor among the players, most of whom, anecdotally, don’t even want to abridge the best-of-five format. In other words, you are onto something—but tennis is gonna tennis.

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Jon, can you please explain more about your tweet? The Saudis are buying the ATP rankings? How can this be?

Kaylee G., New York

• I am torn between “enough of the Saudi talk already” and “this is a huge, potentially transformational story in tennis, far more important than a February match result or Nick Kyrgios’s latest provocation.” Last week, we reported that the PIF (the Saudi sovereign wealth fund) is on the verge of a deal with the ATP, that includes sponsorship and ownership of the rankings. (I am told a similar WTA deal is next but is complicated by this bid to host the WTA Finals.)

You could frame this as simple sponsorship—Pepperstone is the current ranking sponsor—but you could also make the case that this is the first step of something far greater. This is the creep of sportswashing. And this is another phase in the strategic play to infiltrate tennis, without rocking too many foundations. Hold an exhibition. Hold a Next Generation event. Bank up the Brink’s truck and pick off Rafael Nadal. Throw some money at the tour ($100 million over five years, I’m told) for some vague sponsorships and integrations. Maybe the next step: bid to buy the Miami and/or Madrid events from IMG, which will push back on deal terms but not ethics.

Compare this all to the wrecking-ball, scorched-earth, cannonball-into-the-pool, enough-of-the-disruptive-metaphors approach of golf’s LIV Tour. Remember, if the goal here is to launder a country’s image and paper over human rights abuses using sports to rebrand, playing bully in hostile-takeover mode is a backfire. Honey, not vinegar and all.

Sadly on brand for the WTA, the calendar STILL lists no site for the 2024 Finals, which is—checks notes—this year. But there is this brewing multiyear deal to bring the Finals to Charlotte in 2027. My guess is this is a way for the WTA to ease discomfort of embedding with the Saudis. “Hey, look, we’re only there for three years. Riyadh is just one in a series of host cities. Nothing to see here, folks. Maybe you want to ask Coco Gauff, Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Świątek about barbecue and not human rights violations?”

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Hello Jon! I found a 2014 mailbag where you claim that [Roger] Federer has a lagging mindset and lacks an “I-will-put-my-boot-on-your-throat mentality.” Would you care to revisit this with the benefit of 10 years of hindsight?

It seems that recent tennis stars succeed while still being “nice guys,” as contrasted with past athletes who could be contentious even when not competing, such as [Lleyton] Hewitt or Lance Armstrong. Speaking of mindsets, Federer says that during the 2018 Australian Open against Nadal, he told himself, “You have nothing to lose. It’s okay to lose.” Presumably, this reduced his pressure and anxiety. And Nadal, when asked how he remains so calm on the court, corrected the questioner by rebutting, “It’s not true, I’m nervous.”

It seems that athletes today are more willing to acknowledge that they doubt themselves like the rest of us, and I don’t see mental coaches encouraging a “Put your knife to his throat” mentality. Has the mental approach to the game evolved?

Kevin Kane, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

• Yikes, that column was … not my best. Can nice athletes finish first? This question is not unique to tennis. And, of course, there is no empirical answer, not least because niceness is not easily quantified.

The real point: Some athletes are more comfortable with competition and confrontation than others. Michael Jordan thrived on competition. Tiger Woods? Loved it. Serena Williams? Fierce competitor. Maria “I was never here to make friends” Sharapova draws high marks here. Others, like Federer, by his own admission, had to cultivate a taste for battle and warm to the idea that his opponent was an adversary.

Your question is a good one. Are current athletes less inclined to be “assassins” and more inclined to express doubt? Anecdotally, sure. I’ve noticed that athletes are more likely to position themselves as innocent underdogs than I’m-coming-for-you alphas. Open to ideas as to why? Maybe it’s because we are evolving and humility and doubt are not seen as weaknesses. Empathy is not a weakness. Maybe it’s simply because athletes don’t want to catch grief on social media for brazen talk.

Nice adjacent: I was really moved by this Grigor Dimitrov moment from last week. Yes, because it was such a humane, unscripted gesture in a world that can always use more. But also because—already in the mood because of this excellent recent column by Hannah Wilks—I got to thinking about Dimitrov’s default mode. When he broke through as a teenager with such an artistic game (and was cursed by the nickname that cannot be mentioned) he also projected “good-people-ness.” Upbeat. Friendly. Liked by colleagues. Liked by administrators. Accessible to fans. Accessible to media. Since then, he’s been through a lot. Ups. Down. Close calls. Coaches. Surges of success. Slumps. Theft. Talent that can seem to play peek-a-boo. Relationships. And fundamental decency has been a constant companion. This doesn’t always happen—in any sector. It’s not simply, “He never turned into a jerk.” It’s that he always remained true to himself.

Dimitrov took time after a February match to snap a selfie with a fan :: Robert Deutsch/USA TODAY Sports

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Jon, help! I got into the Australian Open this year, especially Daniil Medvedev. Then tennis takes a step back. Why would the sport schedule the Australian Open so early in the year and then no more [Majors] until the French Open in June??

Sammy

• I’ve never had an issue with this. I rather like that tennis comes in hot and has a high-stakes event before the Super Bowl. Even if it then “takes a step back,” as you put it. This is like the awards show that gives out the “Best Actress” category in the first half hour before reverting to “Best Beekeeper in a Digital Short.” Or Alabama opening the college football season against Texas A&M, before settling into games against Western Kentucky and South Florida. Come in hot, gin up interest, then retreat a bit and rev up again for Indian Wells and Miami.

I wonder if the bigger issue is the fall. Players talk about peaking for the majors, the four tentpoles. The U.S. Open ends in mid-September. This leads to nearly three months that, in the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald, savor of anticlimax. To go back to our awards show analogy, you want to end with “Best Picture”, not give it out three-quarters of the way through and close with 45 minutes of “Best Bossa Nova Mixer.”

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Backstory: The other night, a friend was over and said she became a Jannik Sinner fan years ago. (Tennis players are like alternative bands before becoming arena bands. Everyone was early to the party. “I listened to R.E.M. ever since they played in my cousin Arturo’s basement!”) Anyway, to my friend’s credit, she provided a specific match that won her affection—Sinner (then a teenager) defeated David Goffin at the 2020 French Open. I went to check the scoreline, and googled “Goffin Sinner.” Two days later, this email arrived. When do we stop getting alarmed by all the data sharing and creepy micro-targeting?

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Shots, Miscellany:

• R.I.P., Andy Brandi.
• R.I.P. Peter Lawler, a longtime sports lawyer, agent and Yale sports legend.