Abu Dhabi: The appointment of former greats as coaches seems to be the latest trend in men’s tennis. World number two Novak Djokovic recently joined the bandwagon by roping in Boris Becker as his new head coach. Another former world No 1, Roger Federer, has also started working with childhood hero and fellow former top-ranked great Stefan Edberg.
Both Djokovic and Federer thus are following in the footsteps of Andy Murray, who already has Ivan Lendl as coach, to boost their careers.
“Obviously, everyone wants to keep working on every game. It is good to see great players like Novak get some help from Becker who has been there and done it before. I don’t know if it is a trend starting here or not. For that, we will have to wait and see for few years,” Murray said in an exclusive telephone interview with Gulf News on Sunday.
Becker, renowned for his dominance of grass courts, will help Djokovic try and win back the Wimbledon title he won in 2011 from Murray in 2014.
Becker, nicknamed ‘Boom Boom’, and Lendl, known as the ‘Blank Czech’ for showing no emotions on court, met three times in Grand Slam finals and the former has a 100 per cent win record. Lendl had a 12-10 career record against Becker and won eight slams, two more than the German. During his two-year association with Murray, Lendl has guided the Scot to Olympic, US Open and Wimbledon titles.
Many pundits of the game are also of the view that this season will see a revival of an old rivalry between Lendl and Becker. However, Murray begs to defer, saying: “I personally don’t think there will be renewal of a rivalry. I mean, no matter if you are coaching the players, you can’t influence much. Once you step on court, the coaches can do very little to the outcome of a match. It is the preparation where the coaches can make a really good difference. We will have to see how it goes from here.”
Three-way battle
With the ageing Federer showing signs of decline, it is expected to be a three-way battle between reigning world No 1 Rafael Nadal, Djokovic and Murray in the coming season. However, Murray is only focusing on his own form.
“I can honestly speak for myself and not others. I’m coming back from an injury and I’m not expecting anything. My focus is to try and be healthy. Hopefully, results will come if I’m 100 per cent fit. I would expect everyone to play very good tennis this year. I would personally like to get good results in the Grand Slams,” the Scot, who will be returning to competitive tennis at the Mubadala Tennis Championship on Boxing Day against Jo Wilfried Tsonga after undergoing back surgery, said.
The 26-year-old said that he didn’t have to prepare himself mentally before going under the knife as the surgery was long overdue. “It was something I knew I had to do for a while. The surgery was a must and so I didn’t have to prepare much mentally. It happened one day on court and it was a problem I was carrying on for 18 months and I wanted to get rid of it,” Murray, who has been training in Miami, said.
The Abu Dhabi tournament will give Murray a good idea on how much he has recovered from the surgery, and the Scot is looking forward to it.
“My training has gone very well but until the time you don’t play many matches, you don’t know how good your body is. So therefore, I can’t set any goals right now. I will be playing the best and will get to know what my weaknesses are as others would look to exploit that.”
