SWEDE TO TRIAL AS ANDY’S No 2

JONAS BJORKMAN is the preferred candidate to become Andy Murray’s new assistant coach with the Swedish former world No 4 joining the Brit’s team for a trial period. Murray has been searching for a new No 2 coach since Dani Vallverdu left the team last November and went on to work with Czech Tomas Berdych. Bjorkman will join up with Murray for one week in the next month or so once he has completed his TV commitments with

Let’s Dance, the Swedish version of Strictly Come Dancing. The 42-year-old has plenty of experience in the game, reaching the semi-finals at Wimbledon in 2006 and the US Open in 1997. He also won nine doubles titles across all four Grand Slams between 1998 and 2006 Bjorkman (below) tweeted: ‘I’m super excited and I’m really looking forward to join @andy_murray and his team for a test week.’ Murray and Bjorkman have played each other on tour once, with the 2013 Wimbledon champion coming out on top in five sets in their secondround clash at the US Open in 2007. Murray is currently in Indian Wells, California with main coach Amelie Mauresmo for the BNP Paribas Open and is scheduled to take on Canada’s Vasek Pospisil or Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan in the second round on Saturday or Sunday. Speaking before

Great Britain’s victory against the USA in the Davis Cup last weekend, Murray said: ‘After the Aussie Open I spent the next three or four weeks with no coach. ‘I feel that’s something I obviously need to get sorted so that when I get to the clay-court season, I am not in that position, because I feel like there are some things I need to work on all the time. ‘When I don’t have someone there it’s harder to do that.’