Lendl hails Team Murray and looks forward to another successful title tilt
Ivan Lendl is reunited with Britain’s No. 1 but, he tells Simon Briggs, coaching plays no part in his role
Ivan Lendl’s greatest virtue in his new job? His bluntness. Where some tennis coaches bow and scrape, in reflection of their status as paid hirelings, Lendl is more of a grand vizier: the servant, in theory, who tells the sultan what to do. Yet Lendl’s unflinching self-analysis is not limited to his clients. He applies the same cold logic to his own performance, and while he might know how to prepare Andy Murray for match day, he would not dream of telling him how to hit a backhand.
“I don’t do any technique, zero,” Lendl explained. “I believe that at 27 or 29, what you have is what you are going to have. You can groove certain things, but changing technique is not where I’m going to go. A, I don’t believe you should do it at that age and, B, I suck at it.
“Even with the juniors [Lendl is helping a group of six American 17-year-olds with world-class potential] I ask for two coaches. I requested someone who’s good at it because I suck at it. I can see there is something wrong with your forehand and see what it is, but I have no idea how to fix that.”
This is a telling insight into the great Lendl-Murray bromance, as well as the role of the so-called supercoaches. Just because Goran Ivanisevic had the greatest lefty serve ever seen, that does not mean he knows how to assemble the perfect action. But he did help Marin Cilic – another big server – to win the 2014 US Open by encouraging him to prioritise power over placement. In Lendl’s case, the menial details – booking courts, finding practice partners – are not his bag. They can be left to the hugely capable Jamie Delgado, the assistant coach who joined the camp after the Australian Open. Lendl is more interested in setting effective ground rules, with a particular focus on taking down the big prey. He might not fire the gun, but he knows how to line up the shot.
“It is more about grooving the things you need to use and making sure they are ticking,” said Lendl this week. “Generally the players are always improving. It’s the same if you look at track and field, or swimming, and wherever you can measure. Maybe some records don’t go down but more people get close to them and so on. Andy seems to be in a good place. Everybody on the team is clicking well together. I think that’s important, so he can focus on his tennis. I would be more pleased if we’d had better practices at Queen’s. We got cut short in our first three or four by rain. I had some stuff that we didn’t have time to do but, hopefully, we get some good weather before Wimbledon starts.”
Had Lendl been at home this week, he would have been playing in the qualifying competition for the Connecticut Open. That is golf, not tennis, as the two artificial hips he has had installed since his previous stint with Murray do not lend themselves to sharp movement. “Stuff like that happens,” he shrugs. “It’s not the first time I’ve had to pull out of events.”
Now he finds himself thrown into the ongoing tug of war between the two best players in the world. Murray has struggled with this battle since his back operation at the end of 2013, but his prospects will be much enhanced with Lendl adding his own weight to the rope.
Does Lendl agree with the recent comment from Boris Becker that his own charge, Djokovic, is better than everyone else because he wants it more? “I don’t know Novak as well as Boris,” he replied. “But I have seen a lot of people in sport overcome huge obstacles and that makes them mentally tough. With the war in Serbia, it couldn’t have been easy.
“When you get to the top of the game, you are held in respect by the other players. It may be good for a point or two per set, but I’m not sure it is as much with the other top players as it is to the players outside the top 10, who don’t get to see you every week. Once you get enough matches against your main rivals, I don’t think it’s that much of a factor.”
What, then, are his memories of 2013 and Murray’s unforgettable victory over Djokovic in the Wimbledon final? “The thing that stands out most in my mind is actually the pressure he was under,” Lendl reminisced. “I would go out and on the street people would be saying, ‘I hope he can do it’. I never experienced pressure on that level myself, but I knew what Andy was dealing with. And that he was able to deal with it was very good, was beautiful to see.”
Technically, tactically and mentally, Lendl clearly believes that his man has the equipment to slay the dragon here in SW19. Now it is just a question of getting him to do it.