Even Germany’s tennis legend Boris Becker was unable to prevent the semi-final exit of Denmark’s Holger Rune at the ATP tournament in Basel.
Rune (20) lost in the semifinals against Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime clearly 3:6, 2:6 and thus lost for the first time since he presented Becker last week as his new coach for selected tournaments.
For Rune, the missed final in Basel also meant a setback in the fight for participation in the ATP Finals in Turin in mid-November. Rune remains in eighth place in the current year’s rankings behind Germany’s top player Alexander Zverev. Zverev was defeated in the quarterfinals by Russian Andrey Rublyov at the tournament taking place in Vienna at the same time and has therefore not yet secured his ticket for Turin either.
Both Zverev and Rune could be overtaken by the currently strong playing Pole Hubert Hurkacz at the Masters 1000 event in Paris next week. Hurkacz advanced to the final in Basel by defeating Frenchman Ugo Humbert 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7-5), where he will meet Auger-Aliassime on Sunday. In Vienna, Daniil Medvedev of Russia and Jannik Sinner of Italy, who have already qualified for Turin, will contest the final.
