PARIS, (Reuters) – Breaking British records has become a bit of a habit for Andy Murray.
Next week, however, the Scot will have a chance to achieve something no tennis player has ever done — win four different titles in the city of London.
Murray’s impressive prize collection already includes a Wimbledon Challenge Cup, a London 2012 Olympic gold medal and three Queen’s Club trophies. Should he become the first Briton to win the elite season-ending ATP World Tour Finals, he will own a unique set of titles captured on British soil.
As he prepares to finish off his season on a high, the twice grand slam champion sat down with Reuters to discuss how “it’s been three or four years” since he “felt so well”, about his recent run of form when he won three titles in five weeks and his opinion on who is the best dancer in the Murray family.
REUTERS: How does the past month and a half, when you have had to save 10 match points in finals before winning three titles in five weeks compare to the past two seasons when you won grand slam titles?
MURRAY: “It’s been different. Different goals and targets. With my ranking having dropped a bit and obviously I hadn’t won a tournament for a while… the last four of five weeks have been very good for that.
“The way the finals have been won, I saved (five) match points in two of them and also in the third one (David) Ferrer was serving for the match (in Vienna). So they have been very, very tight close matches so it’s been nice to get a few wins.”
REUTERS: You have now been working with twice grand slam champion Amelie Mauresmo for almost five months, what has been her influence in your recent title runs?
MURRAY: “Amelie was only there in Valencia whereas Dani (Vallverdu) has been with me (throughout) so we have to give him credit as well. When you start a new coaching relationship, it takes time before you see the results, it doesn’t happen in one week.
“Hopefully at the beginning of next year we’ll start to see the improvements I will have made from practicing, working with Amelie and Dani.”
REUTERS: Do you consider yourself as something of a trend setter because you hire a former grand slam champion as coach and others follow suit. You appoint a woman as coach and the Spanish tennis federation follows suit by appointing a female Davis Cup captain?
MURRAY: “The relationships have to be successful and when it’s a successful relationship, people will look at it and see that maybe that would work.
“Obviously with (my previous coach) Ivan (Lendl), that obviously worked out well in terms of results so I’m sure some players would have looked at that. With Amelie, it’ll take time but it’s been a good start.
“We’ll see if that changes in the future and if there’s more female coaches on the men’s and women’s side because there is very few on the women’s side as well.
“For me I am more than happy to work with a man or a woman providing there is a relationship there between the two of you when you speak about tennis, that there’s an understanding.
“Similar understanding about the game. The things you need to work on, that’s very important. And the only way you can gauge that is the way you communicate with that person.”
