While Holger Rune’s idol Roger Federer is out of the question, surely the next best addition to his coaching fray is the Swiss great’s former coach.
Not content with having already hired two-time former Australian Open champion Boris Becker late last year, the Danish eighth seed brought on a second super coach, Severin Luthi, ahead of his Melbourne Park return.
DRAW: Australian Open 2024 men’s singles
Becker was notably absent from the trip to Melbourne, but on Tuesday, Luthi was front and centre at Rod Laver Arena as part of the team for the 20-year-old’s testing 6-2 4-6 7-6(3) 6-4 triumph over Yoshihito Nishioka.
After avenging an Adelaide 2023 defeat to the Japanese left-hander in three hours and 25 minutes, Rune, who joined seeds Casper Ruud and Grigor Dimitrov as first-round winners on Day 3, paid tribute to his new Swiss mentor.
“It's amazing. Roger was my childhood idol, so it's great to have, you know, a bit of him in my team,” he said. “It's so cool.”
The Dane, who booked a meeting with 21-year-old Frenchman Arthur Cazaux, enjoyed an ideal preparation in Brisbane, where he reached the final before a defeat to Dimitrov.
Against the 170cm 61st-ranked Nishioka, a man he dubbed “a fighter”, Rune’s five matches leading in steeled him for a tough outing, during which he eked out a 73-minute third set in a tiebreak.
“It was a very important set. It was back and forth I would say,” Rune said. “He had his chance, I had my chances. It was a key set for who got the lead in the match... I'm just happy to play some very good tennis in the end.”
Rune’s Brisbane conqueror, 13th seed Dimitrov, continued his unbeaten start to 2024 with a four-set victory over dangerous Hungarian Marton Fucsovics.
Dimitrov landed his first tour trophy in more than six years at Pat Rafter Arena nine days ago but initially struggled to carry that momentum into his first match of AO 2024 before he settled into the hot conditions better than his ailing opponent.
The Bulgarian enjoyed his best Australian Open run seven years ago when he reached the semifinals, but his 31-year-old opponent had twice reached the fourth round at Melbourne Park in 2018 and 2020, the latter at which he beat Denis Shapovalov, Jannik Sinner and Tommy Paul before taking a set off Federer.
“Marton is such a quality player, I think one of the strongest guys on tour, so from the first point I knew it was going to be very difficult for me,” Dimitrov said ahead of a second-round meeting against Thanasi Kokkinakis or Sebastian Ofner.
“For some reason at the beginning I couldn't adjust to the conditions… I knew physically I was at a very good level. I just wanted to stay on that. I knew my game was not there, but I could count on something else and that was my physicality today.
“We're very friendly with each other. We've known each other for such a long time. It's never easy when you see a player, obviously, from his calibre struggle especially in conditions like this.”
Eleventh seed Ruud earlier had an easier time of it against familiar foe Albert Ramos-Vinolas at Margaret Court Arena.
The Norwegian’s 6-1 6-3 6-1 result was his fourth straight win against the Spaniard, having dropped the first four meetings in the rivalry, including in qualifying.
In their first hard-court clash, Ruud was particularly dominant on his forehand, where he picked off 19 winners, and on serve, where he claimed 83 per cent of first-serve points.
The two-hour outing freed up the three-time major finalist’s afternoon, during which time Max Purcell set a second-round showdown, but a quick nine holes on one of Melbourne’s acclaimed sand-belt golf courses was not on the cards on Tuesday.
“I don't think there's time today. I actually have a Zoom call with an interior architect tonight,” Ruud said. “New house, so I'm going to have to prepare for that, think about other things, you know, fabric, colour mixing…
“It's a bit different to tennis, but I'm looking forward to it. I'm just going to have some good food and enjoy the fact that I don't have to run around in the heat anymore today.”
Later on Tuesday night, sixth seed Alexander Zverev opened his AO 2024 account with a four-set win over fellow German Dominik Koepfer.
The 26-year-old set a second-round clash with Slovak qualifier Lukas Klein following his 4-6 6-3 7-6(3) 6-3 victory at MCA.