Lendl and Murray

I'm intrigued by Murray's appointment of Ivan Lendl as his new coach. Lendl's pedigree as a player is outstanding, but as a coach he's unproven, simply because it would appear he's never coached on the tour. The transition from player to coach is often a very difficult one, as Martin Johnson has recently experienced. Coaches who achieve rapid success are few and far between - Jurgen Klinsman is a notable exception, coaching the German football team to 3rd place in the 2006 World Cup.

But this isn't a shotgun wedding, with the appointment coming nine months after initial contact, a gestation period which allowed Murray time to talk with several other possible coaches. Tony Roche, Lendl's vastly experienced former coach has no qualms about Lend's ability to bring great gains to Murray, through his attention to detail, his professionalism, and his oft misrepresented personality. Whilst the press loved to typecast him as a terminator style robot, and indeed North Korea once feted him as an icon through a postage stamp, people on the inside know him as a very witty, engaging man. 

What are the key areas that will determine the success of Lendl and Murray together? In this posting I explore four key questions, and show how a powerful model may shed some light on the subject.


The Big Picture
Murray is now 24 and ranked 4 in the world, and is a maturing player. He has strong opinions, and a clear sense of how he wants to play. From the outside he can appear highly self critical and critical of others in his team. It is vital that he respects his coach, both for what he has achieved, and how he proposes to help him.

Q1. How joined up is their vision?
Early indications are positive ""Ivan's impact on the game is unquestionable and he brings experience and knowledge that few others have, particularly in major tournaments. I spoke to him about a lot of the top players and how I am going to beat those players, and how to see their weakness … how I can exploit them. So I am sure he will help me very tactically as well."


Lendl was famed for being an aggressive player, so may well be able to help Murray in this area, where he needs to become more consistently aggressive. However, it's not yet clear how fundamentally Murray is prepared to embrace this more aggressive philosophy, given his immense strengths and seemingly innate preference as a counterpuncher. 


Q2. What is the level of Lendl's psychological skill?
All great coaches are psychologists in one way or another - Brian Clough, Martin O'Neill and  and Alex Ferguson all have demonstrated the ability to help players increase their self confidence and direct their focus. How skilled is Ivan in this area? Helping Murray to channel his energy and frustration in a consistently more effective way; to understand that he doesn't need to rant at himself and his team, and that it's counterproductive. Helping him to make the mental tweaks that will raise the 1st serve % and his second serve speed in the big matches.

Q3. How will the new Team Murray work?

Who reports to who? In an Olympic sport, the Head Coach co-ordinates the support team of physio, S&C coach etc. The lines of role and responsibility are clearly drawn to work well under pressure. What are Lendl's skills in this area - managing and working with other professionals. It may well be this is a pretty flat structure with little hierarchy, but the way they work together will still need to bed down and be ironed out.


Q.4 How will Lendl manage with such little coaching experience?

In recent press, Lendl cites his experience of being coached by Tony Roche, who helped him win his first slam final at the fifth time of asking.  "To me this is like Groundhog Day – I have been in this movie," Lendl told the Times. "I was that player once, who needed something to help make it work, it was the same as I was before I hired Rochey. What happened then changed my career around." The one difference between Lendl and Roche lies in their coaching experience - to check this I called Tony Roche on Skype this morning and asked him about his early coaching career - he told me he cut his teeth for a few years before he coached Ivan, setting up the Newcombe Roche tennis academy, and then being Davis cup coach for New Zealand and coaching Chris Lewis to the 1983 Wimbledon final. All of this may have contributed to his success coaching Lendl, although according to Tony, not as much as the learning he gained as a player from the legendary Harry Hopman, who also coached Laver and Newcombe to greatness.

Chris Lewis also coached Lendl for three years and describes him as  "Intelligent, ambitious and always purposeful. He could be the most goal-oriented person I've ever met". At 50 and the father of five daughters, Lendl will likely bring an attitude and immense experience of life that a 35 year old recently retired pro simply could not have amassed.  

What do the psychological models have to say?

Relationship Q (RQ) is a powerful and practical coaching model that describes the key phases of coach athlete relationships, and the participants' ability to negotiate these.

The Murray Lendl relationship will be at stage 1, the honeymoon phase which typically includes an initial dose of the mutual trust and energy that brought them together in the first place. As they progress on the tour through the year's majors , emotional intensity and investment will rise. There will be successes, which will build trust and energy, and there will be frustrations and disappointments. How they both handle these 'difficulties' will be critical. Murray syas that he has hired Lendl because he doesn't just want a coach who is overly positive and spends too much time on the right side of this model. He says Lendl is "very honest and very open".


These difficulties are at the heart of coaching - identifying the gap that needs to be bridged, and together finding ways over that bridge. It will be fascinating to watch how this journey unfolds.