Desire for independence all too evident as Murray axes Gilbert

Published on Thursday 15 November 2007 00:35

ANOTHER turbulent period in Andy Murray's career came to a close yesterday when it was confirmed that he and his coach, Brad Gilbert, had parted company. But then, turbulence and the young Scot appear to go hand in hand, to the extent that it is reasonable to presume that the day he loses his inner rage will mark the end of his career as a world-class tennis player.

Both on and off the court, Murray has displayed a well- developed sense of the dramatic. Just as he has shrugged off injuries and bouts of vomiting to win matches, so he has shrugged off coach after coach in his apparently unstoppable rise to the top.

Leon Smith, who coached Andy and his older brother Jamie while both were juniors, was always likely to give way to a man with greater experience of the professional senior tour. Next came Pato Alvarez, a coach who had taken charge of dozens of top-50 players: he and Murray worked well together for a time, until the teenager, as he then was, decided he needed a younger man than Alvarez to relate to.

Mark Petchey then took up the mantle for a time, but the fact that the Englishman had never reached the summit of the sport was always going to tell against him. As Murray climbed the rankings, so the differences between coach and client became more visible, culminating in the split in April 2006.

Then, after reaching the last 16 at Wimbledon on his own that summer, Murray teamed up with Gilbert. It was seen as a coup by the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA): they had secured the services of one of the best coaches in the world to look after one of the most promising players on the planet.

As a player, Gilbert had lacked those extra ounces of talent which separate the truly gifted from the merely exceptional, but he had enjoyed some victories over superior opponents thanks to his tactical nous and his ability to get under their skin. Once he married that nous to the sublime talents of players such as Andy Roddick, Gilbert proved himself to be invaluable as a coach. Far closer to Murray's own age than Alvarez, far more experienced than Smith or Petchey, Gilbert appeared to many to be an ideal match for Murray. From the start, though, those two fiercely proud personalities had their clashes. For a time they might have been regarded as teething troubles, but as the months wore on they looked more like genuine differences of opinion, or strategy, or simply attitude.

In a short statement released through the LTA yesterday, Murray briefly thanked the British governing body and Gilbert, then explained that he henceforth plans to work with a group of people to assist him rather than placing himself in the care of one individual coach. "Despite being injured for almost four months this year, I am pleased with my 2007 results and am very grateful for the help that the LTA have given me by providing Brad Gilbert as a coach," he said.

"But the time has come to move on to the next stage of my career. I am ranked 11 in the world and can now afford to pay my own way, and so will now hire a team of experts each to fulfil a specified role in the development of my tennis and fitness."

The message was clear: Murray is in charge now, and will not be directed by others. To an extent, this desire to take control of his own life is understandable and indeed laudable, a sign of his growing self-confidence.

Certainly, Murray is renowned for his tactical nous on court. From an early age, he has shown a great facility for quickly assessing an opponent's game then immediately working out the best way to exploit his strengths and weaknesses.

His game plans, then, no doubt often show greater perspicacity than anything his coaches could come up with. But even the best players, almost without exception, need someone in their corner to offer a second opinion - someone who feels they are in charge rather than being in the position of only offering advice they think their client wants to hear.

Roger Federer, the world No1, has spent some time without a coach, in a set-up similar to that envisaged by Murray now, with different people looking after different aspects of his game and business interests. But when he did that at first, the Swiss player had completed his rise to the top and achieved a lot more than Murray has done.

Even then he decided he could not go on like that indefinitely, and hired Tony Roche as a sort of sporadic coach. In May this year Federer dispensed with Roche's services, and although he has since won Wimbledon and the US Open, the more recent signs are that he is in serious need of an outside voice to provide him with a reality check.

It is hard to see Murray faring any better than the man many regard as the greatest tennis player of all time. In the short term he may have the talent and sporting intelligence to keep making progress, but sooner or later he will need someone else.

The question is: who? Gilbert may not be universally liked, but his ability as a coach is beyond dispute. If he cannot work with Murray, who can? At least there will be plenty coaches willing to try, knowing that the prize if they get it right will be considerable. For the moment, though, it seems they will all have to bide their time while Murray asserts his independence.