No. 1 on the court and on the benches

A few weeks ago the news came out that Andy Murray would be coaching Novak Djokovic. At first I hesitated, but then I realized that I once did the same thing with my sister, and as soon as I retired I started coaching her. I thought, “I’m sure he’ll do well.” Knowing Andy from his youth when he spent his early years away from home at our tennis academy in Barcelona, I knew he would one day become a coach, but I never thought he would do it so soon after retiring, let alone picking the No. 1 player in the world.    

Andy has been Novak’s direct rival, and he chooses one of the most difficult pupils to coach, because of his age, his system, but also because of his character. Will he be able to do a good job? I can imagine him with a lot of questions in his head, but Murray has always been known for choosing difficult challenges and for taking them to the end, although he must surely have doubts.   

 What he does have in his favor is that he has always been a scholar, he has found the way to compete with the best with less game and stand up to them, so being a deep analyst he can surely find the way to have the arguments to convince his student, in this case Novak, to reach his goals. His first change has been to convince the Serb to commit himself to play the whole year by preparing himself in the previous tournaments to be competitive.  

 The matches they have already played together in Australia as pupil-coach have shown closeness, respect and good plans. Novak started the tournament doubtful but has been improving with the passing of the matches and the truth is that they have not had any hard moments of tension yet. They even had some calm and paused conversations, where you can see the respect they have for each other. I was especially impressed by Andy’s calmness and humility, what a difference from the way he handled his emotions as a player in key moments.  

 Today they face Carlos Alcaraz and J.C. Ferrero in the quarterfinals. Novak is in his moment, he has been improving, but so has Carlos, all the work of both is directed to reach these matches in their best version. It will be a battle to the death and both have the tranquility of having on the bench a former number 1 who knows what it means to play these matches. However, Juan Carlos, although he shows on the bench how he feels, is quite moderate. How will Andy face his first emotional test? Let’s remember that as a player he had a hard time managing his emotions and Novak doesn’t shut up in difficult moments, so we’ll see which Andy we’ll find.   

 The truth is that it will be a great match on the court but also on the benches. Australia has decided to put the coaches almost inside the court and make them part of the party, so the show is guaranteed both inside and outside the court. We will sure learn a lot of tactics and patterns of play today.