Murray targets new beginning
Originally published on: 29/07/10 11:13
His split from coach Miles Maclagan was initially blamed on differences in scheduling and priorities, but Andy Murray has revealed that the decision to part with his mentor was based on the pair’s conflicting views on his game.
“It wasn’t necessarily something that Miles wasn’t bringing,” said Murray from Los Angeles, where he is preparing for his opening match against Tim Smyczek at the Farmers Classic on Friday.
“We had a chat when we were in Miami about how we saw things. We all saw things pretty differently.”
The Scot, who will also part company with two-time French Open finalist Alex Corretja, reached the US Open and Australian Open finals and achieved a career-high No.2 ranking under Maclagan. But Murray admits that he, Macalgan and Corretja had differing thoughts on how best to achieve his goals, disrupting his desire for a cohesive unit.
“Between the three of us we obviously had different ideas and different ways of seeing things, what I felt was beneficial to me and what Miles and Alex felt was beneficial to me,” said Murray.
“I need to be comfortable in the set-up that I have – have 100% confidence that everyone that’s working with me believes it’s the right thing to do.
“The last few years have gone very, very well, but I want to try and get to number one in the world and try to win Grand Slams.”
After losing to Federer in a Grand Slam final for the second time this January, Murray’s form and motivation plummeted, with critics questioning whether the 23-year-old has the attacking qualities to go the distance in one of the four majors.
“It’s easy to start over-thinking things and over-analysing things,” countered Murray. “I don’t think there’s a problem with my game.
“I just need to get better, and that’s something that maybe hasn’t happened the last four or five months.
“Hopefully by getting a new coach and a new coaching team in place, that will help me do that, and hopefully achieve my goals.
“Now I feel good again,” he added, having returned to top form at the All England Club with five impressive victories, before the untouchable Rafael Nadal blunted his hopes of making his first Wimbledon final.
“I feel confident after the way Wimbledon went. I kind of saw what the problems were, what I needed to do to get back to playing top-three, top-four tennis again. I addressed it.”
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