Happy New Year and good health to everyone. I left you with my traditional letter to Santa Claus in which I allowed myself a certain number of requests. On the other hand, that of the Djokovic-Murray association was not part of it. Regardless, I'll take it anyway, because I'm an absolute fan of this collaboration.
As soon as it was announced, I thought the idea was as surprising as it was good. Seeing Andy Murray return to the circuit so quickly as a coach was indeed quite astonishing. And in Novak Djokovic's box, even more. Or not ultimately. Not sure that the two-time Wimbledon winner would have agreed to return to service so quickly alongside a player with less potential. Remember that his retirement only dates back to the Olympic Games, last August.
Obviously if it had been necessary to train a player with the aim of getting out of the qualifiers, the Scotsman (or his wife) would not have even taken the time to think before refusing. But there, his player's ambition is quite simply to win the tournament and given his record, it is logical to say that it is justified.
Barring an accident, it is difficult to imagine the man with 24 Grand Slams leaving the tournament prematurely. If this is confirmed, it would mean a necessarily winning start for Murray as a coach. Be careful, a winning start does not necessarily mean that your player must win the tournament, but just reach, at least, the quarter-finals, which is far from being supernatural.
His player is such a star himself that no one could overshadow him.
It is not yet known whether Andy Murray had, whatever happened, planned to coach. On the other hand, everyone said that one day he would make an excellent coach, just like Gilles Simon for example. These extremely intelligent players, with a very high tennis intelligence quotient, can undoubtedly make excellent coaches. I think of names like Richard Gasquet, who has already said he wants to coach, Nicolas Mahut, who studies the game again and again, Andy Roddick who is in constant analysis and many others. Andy Murray is clearly in this lineage, as Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer undoubtedly would also be. But they are such stars that they would immediately steal the show from their protégé. Murray is too, but to a lesser degree. And in this case, it doesn't matter, because his player is such a star himself that no one could overshadow him.
For Novak Djokovic, who explained it very well, Andy Murray is the perfect profile to bring him that je ne sais quoi that could enable him to successfully chase this 25th Grand Slam title after which he short.
-Here's what Djokovic says: “I've been trying to understand what I need at this stage of my career, because I parted ways in March with my (former) coach Goran Ivanisevic, with whom I knew many victories and worked for many years. I realized that at this point, the ideal coach for me would be someone who had the same experiences as me, perhaps a winner of several Grand Slam tournaments, a former world number one. » And continues: “This is one of the main reasons why I asked Andy to work with me. I still have big plans, and as long as that is the case, I will continue. I'm going to try to come back strong, because I feel like my body allows me to. I am always motivated to win Grand Slams and make even more history. »
It's also good, on a communications level, to have your trainer who doesn't talk like the bad guy in James Bond.
I'm not totally convinced that Novak still has that many projects. I remind you that the guy won everything and several times. Projects to move forward, so there aren't necessarily that many anymore. On the other hand, for the rest, everything that the Serb explains is so obvious that we just want to say: “But of course, why didn't we think of that sooner?! »
What Djokovic doesn't say is that Andy Murray brings something new to his team, starting with an absence of a Balkan accent. Not that I see any particular problem there, but I must admit that it's also good, on a communications level, to have your trainer who doesn't speak like the bad guy in James Bond! In interviews, Murray is even particularly gifted, displaying great wit, as evidenced by this response given during the pre-tournament exhibition in Melbourne.
And finally, as Novak Djokovic feels enormous respect towards Andy Murray, for the man he is (the two have always gotten along very well, having crossed paths from the very beginning because they are only a week apart), but also for the player and the rival that he was, capable of beating him, what's more in the Grand Slam final, what's more at Wimbledon, where Novak Djokovic triumphed the most times. This respect will force Novak, at least initially, to control his emotions towards his clan, which is not one of his strong points. And being able to not yell at his clan would allow him to save energy, which, at 37 years old, is far from a small thing.
You will have understood, this association is an international win-win. Murray can show the whole world that he is already an excellent coach, which, for the rest of this second career, is very good news for him. As for Djokovic, thanks to Andy, he can still win Grand Slams, which is the only thing that matters to him today and which means that he is still a professional tennis player.
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