Andy: Ivan’s got me firing again
IvAN LENdL met up with Andy Murray a week before the French Open began, and immediately slipped into Sergeant Major mode. The uncompromising Czech ordered a ‘back-to-basics’ approach from his player, a move which has so far paid the dividend of carrying Murray to what had looked an unlikely quarter-final berth.
The 30- year- old Scot today tackles Japan’s Kei Nishikori for a place in the last four, unrecognisable from the faltering figure who had made his world No 1 ranking look like fake news.
‘The one thing we did when Ivan got here, we went right back to the basics,’ revealed Murray, who had not worked with Lendl properly since the Australian Open.
‘The drills we were doing were all very basic, pretty simple drills and we spent a lot of time on the court. We hit lots of balls, no time in the gym really.
‘It was just tennis, plain tennis, and literally getting back to doing the basics right. Making a lot of balls, making myself difficult to beat.
‘It sounds simple but it is not. A lot of the time when things are not going well you start over-thinking.
‘You start wanting to try new things on the practice court, changing tensions in your racket. You think about all sorts of things to work out what is going wrong.
‘But then you get through a couple of matches, you start feeling better, your confidence grows. It can be right down there and it can go right up here pretty quickly, and that has been the case so far this tournament.’
This all rings true enough, because Lendl — believed to have received a seven-figure bonus for helping Murray to another Wimbledon title and world No 1 last year — regards himself as primarily an overseer and motivator.
Cutting through the kind of fog that Murray found himself in after toiling around Europe’s clay court venues is what he does in his relatively sporadic coaching spells.
At Wimbledon last year he bluntly admitted that he is not one for teaching technique. ‘It’s because a) I don’t believe you should do it at that (Murray’s) age and b) I suck at it,’ Lendl said. It is possible to overstate Lendl’s powers but whatever he does, his presence appears to have reinvigorated Murray. One thing they have clearly focused on is counter-punching more fiercely when forced on to the defensive. Murray has conserved surplus energy at this French Open compared to when he reached the final 12 months ago after serious five-set scares in the first week.
‘I’m certainly fresher than last year,’ he said. ‘I didn’t play well in the first couple of rounds and they were hard matches.
‘And I came in playing a lot of tennis, so the body probably feels a little bit better than it did then.’
He should certainly be more alive than when he met Nishikori at this same stage of the US Open last year and lost.
As at the Australian Open in January, in New York it looked like he was mentally and physically frazzled by the middle weekend.
The Japanese player, who bizarrely insisted that he could remember nothing about their Flushing Meadows encounter, may be the more weary on this occasion.
In the third round he had a five- set match against Korea’s Chung Hyeon, which not only gained huge attention in Asia but also spanned two days.
And richly talented though he is, you can never be quite sure what state his body is in.
Murray has a career 8-2 record over 5ft 10in Nishikori, who plays vastly differently from his previous opponent, the young Russian bruiser Karen Khachanov. The Scot won their only previous meeting on clay.
It would be a surprise if he does not add to that, with the victor meeting whoever emerges from today’s other quarter-final between Stan Wawrinka and Marin Cilic.