Ivan Lendl- the Man Who Made Murray by Mark Hodgkinson

Author:Mark Hodgkinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aurum Press
Published: 2014-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE BIG RISK

Theirs wasn’t a partnership with a Michelin-starred beginning; one of their first encounters was in a strip mall just off Interstate 95 in Florida, in a no-star, ‘rubbish’ Italian restaurant next to a hairdressers. ‘It wasn’t some flash meeting, and that says a lot about him,’ Andy Murray has recalled of the occasion in late 2011, during the short offseason, when he had lunch with Ivan Lendl beside a highway. The mediocre food appealed to Murray. Tennis’s odd couple, as someone would later call this Dunblane-Ostrava collaboration with a twenty-seven-year age difference, weren’t there for the linguini; Murray was there to confirm that he wanted this winner of eight grand slam titles, one of the all-time greats, and the cheapest of dates, to be his coach.

Nicknamed Killer, because of his polite and personable nature, Darren Cahill is one of the sport’s most respected coaches; the Australian has worked with Andre Agassi and Lleyton Hewitt, he once declined the chance to travel with Roger Federer and in recent years he has become a friend and confidant of Murray. While Lendl’s interest in Murray had been common knowledge in tennis from the spring of 2011, with information leaking to three British newspapers, it would appear that Cahill’s endorsement of Lendl was critical in ultimately bringing the pair together.

If Killer hadn’t sold Lendl to Murray and his circle, which included his mother, Judy, the Scot could have ended up leading a very different tennis life. ‘When Darren suggested Ivan’s name to us, my only knowledge of Ivan was what I had seen of him during his playing days, and what I remembered of him as a player was that he had been a tough, driven, gaunt-looking individual who seemed to have no sense of humour whatsoever,’ Judy Murray told me over a peanut-butter-bagel breakfast at the Lawn Tennis Association’s headquarters in south-west London. ‘The whole journey with Andy’s tennis has been about listening to others and learning from others, and trying to find the right people at the best time. Andy and I valued Darren’s opinion as highly as anyone’s out there, and so when he suggested Ivan to us, we were going to take that seriously, especially as he knew both Andy and Ivan.’

This wasn’t a quick courtship; nine months passed from the news stories about Lendl’s interest in Murray to the announcement on New Year’s Eve 2011 that they had decided to work together. Why did it take so long for Murray and Lendl to agree on a partnership? One reason was that Murray wasn’t especially unhappy with the coaching arrangements since he had discarded Miles Maclagan after the 2010 Wimbledon Championships. He was receiving guidance and encouragement, albeit on a part-time as well as a restricted basis, from the very man who would end up selling Lendl to him. Cahill was one of the perks of Murray’s clothing endorsement deal, with Killer part of a touring posse of coaches who were offered as consultants to players who were contracted to wear Adidas kit.

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