Lendl to join up with world No4 Zverev in bid to repeat the Murray magic

Alexander Zverev, the world No4, has turned his coaching flirtation with Ivan Lendl into something more formal, judging by an Instagram post yesterday that announced: “Welcome to the team.”

Zverev, 21, has already been spotted hitting with Lendl this summer, and also spent time with him at Miami’s Crandon Park in March. But it would be a different matter if Lendl were to sit in Zverev’s player box during the US Open, and potentially travel with him to events outside the United States.

Until now, Zverev has relied mainly on the coaching of his father, also Alexander and known universally as “Papa” within the locker room. There was a brief dalliance with the former French Open champion Juan Carlos Ferrero as a consultant last year, but it ended badly in January, with Ferrero complaining: “It was not right that he would arrive 20 or 30 minutes late to training day after day.”

Such indiscipline would surely not be tolerated by Lendl, whose stony-faced glare is almost as intimidating as his top-spin forehand used to be. But that is not the only reason why this looks a good fit. Zverev is in need of a similar transformation to Andy Murray, in that his default mode when under pressure is to play more conservatively and defensively.

So, Lendl, who encouraged Murray to be more aggressive and was in his player’s box throughout his greatest triumphs, has the perfect CV for the job. Despite a magnificent record at Masters 1,000 tournaments – where he is the only active player other than the “Big Four” to have won more than a single title – Zverev has yet to deliver his best tennis at a grand slam event.

His deepest run to date took him to the quarter-finals of this year’s French Open, but even there he exhausted himself by playing three five-set matches in succession.