As Andy Murray approaches the start of his Wimbledon campaign on Tuesday, the key theme that appears to be prevalent amongst his camp is “fun”.
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As the staff at the All England Club were making final touches to prepare the grounds for the grand kick-off on Monday, Murray was on Friday accompanied by his two coaches, Amelie Mauresmo and Jonas Bjorkman for a practice session on Court 19 with Grigor Dimitrov, who was responsible for ending the Scot’s title defence here last year in the quarter-finals.
A pregnant Mauresmo was giving instructions during practice and keeping score, while Bjorkman – a recent addition to team Murray – was closely observing.
Murray is well-acquainted with Dimitrov and his Aussie coach Roger Rasheed and while the two players were intensely testing each other during the games of first-to-seven they played, the breaks they took were filled with laughter and banter between all five of them on court.
At one point Murray hit a forehand winner that clipped the net before falling on Dimitrov’s side. “Do that again and I’ll give you a thousand,” joked Rasheed.
Rafael Nadal falls in Andy Murray’s quarter of the draw with a potential all-Spanish encounter with David Ferrer in the 4R #TheDraw
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) June 26, 2015
When it was time for Murray to hit some overheads, Rasheed tried to return one of them but with terrible execution. “You doing push-ups for that one?” said Murray, nonchalantly as he picked up the ball.
This will be the first tournament where Murray will have both Bjorkman and Mauresmo with him on site and the Swedish former world No4 – renowned for his sense of humour – is looking forward to contributing to the team this fortnight. He says it helps that they can all have a good laugh while they’re on the job.
“Obviously a good laugh every day is helping a lot to have fun. Andy’s very relaxed and likes to have a few jokes around. You’ve got to always watch your back and I think that’s sort of the great part of being part of his team,” Bjorkman told Sport360 at the All England Club yesterday.
“Everyone is in that mood as well, he’s very easygoing and that’s why it’s been very easy for me to adjust, get into the team, everyone has been super-friendly.”
Murray is looking to add a second Wimbledon crown and a third grand slam title overall. He has in his corner two coaches who have had success at SW19 with Mauresmo winning the title in 2006 and Bjorkman making the semi-finals here the same year.
With Mauresmo only committed to traveling a certain number of weeks with Murray, the world No3 felt the need to bring in Bjorkman to help when the Frenchwoman isn’t available. She is also expected to deliver her baby in August, which means Bjorkman has joined the team at a crucial time.
“I think it’s pretty easy (working with Amelie and Andy). I don’t really see the difference between being two or one coach. We are two in more or less every position.
“Amelie and I have been around on the circuit and have played ourselves, so it’s very easy to find the way of working and so far it’s been good fun.”
Mauresmo started working with Murray this time last year when the Scot was six months into his return from back surgery. She was on the receiving end of some harsh criticism when Murray was still searching for his form last season as many questioned his choice of hiring her.
“To be honest I didn’t really pay attention to that. I knew after a few months how I wanted to work with him and we managed to find the way,” said Mauresmo, a former world No1 on the women’s tour.
Murray, Dimitrov, Bjorkman, Mauresmo and Roger Rasheed during practice now on Court 19 #Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/2kXIYYgoPs
— Reem Abulleil (@ReemAbulleil) June 26, 2015
Murray’s choice to hire a woman as his coach was groundbreaking and the partnership has taken shape over the past 12 months in which he has made the Australian Open final, the last four at Roland Garros and has won six titles.
Mauresmo looks back at how she felt a year ago when she took on the role, saying: “I don’t know if I was nervous. I was more really wanting to help in a key moment in the season for him. It wasn’t easy to get there just before Wimbledon, with him trying to defend his title.
“Not nervous but more like not wanting to disturb in this particular period and all the fuss around me working with him was already… I felt he was handling it pretty well.”
On how she and Murray are opening up doors for more women to become coaches for professional players, the 35-year-old added: “It’s great if it can help, it’s great I’m very happy about that. But I feel it’s more about competence, what you can bring to a player being a man or a woman, to a man or a woman player. Some people, I’ve been realising it in the last year, are not seeing it this way, yet. But that’s how it is.”
