#andy interview

while talking about Jamie's retirement he mentions that many times he was enjoying Jamie's results more than his own, bc his own results came with pressure, whereas he could just be happy for Jamie; he always followed Jamie's scores but hated watching him and is convinced that every time he watched Jamie live he lost

says he played terrible golf the day before, and promply gets asked about a video of a spectacular golf shot: "that's the great thing about instagram, is that you don't see [laughs] all of the... almost 100 shots that I hit yesterday, but you can post the good ones."

his handicap is now down to 1...

golf hasn't replaced the competitive side of tennis for him because he doesn't miss the competition itself, it's more about the routine and the practicing (BUT he does want to start playing more golf competitions)

"You know I could have retired, like four, five years earlier if the only reason you play a sport is, for, like, the results, essentially. I know it's a result business and everyone wants to win, but, you know, I kept playing tennis for as long as I could because I loved it. I loved the training, I loved the travelling, I loved the competition, and I could still do that at a really high level, just not at the level that I was used to, after the hip operation. So that was hard mentally but yeah, the reason why I was continuing to play was because I loved it. And I know that at the end - and this is why I think that I don't miss the sport as much or like, have tons of regrets, is because I left when I was ready to and my body was telling me it was time. So I'm really happy about that."

he gets a bit irritated by people who ask him about missing tennis and then almost seem disappointed that he doesn't miss it (it's because they miss you, Andy, and want their feelings reflected, is it so hard to believe that people might miss you...)

"a lot of the achievements that I had - when I was playing I didn't think that much off them, I wasn't that impressed by it, and, you know, it was just... that was what I was doing [...] when I looked back at my career I was very proud of what I managed to achieve in a very difficult era. I got to play against the three best male tennis players of all time"

"but now, on a day to day basis I never think about tennis anymore, I don't think about my tennis career unless it's something I'm asked about"

 [asked about what him and Novak learned during the coaching stint] "He probably learned nothing [laughs] but I learned a lot."

"And to be honest I would coach again. Probably not right now. [...] I don't really want to do loads of travelling right now, unless it's with my family."

“I learned quite a lot, more just about coaching – I knew loads about his game. I’d played against him for years and studied his game. Um. You know, it was interesting to see what his day to day looked like in comparison to what I might have been doing and how those things differed, that was interesting. But from a coaching perspective, like, just about how you have to communicate your message to the player that you’re working with and, you know, how to listen to them. I really think that having kids has helped me with that, like, learning to be more understanding and seeing something from another person’s point of view and perspective. But I felt like I learned that a bit for coaching, you know, how to work with a team. When you’re like, the focal point of it as a player, all the team are working for you, whereas when you`re part of a coaching team, and you’re just part of that, small part of that, trying to help an individual do the best they can. You know, that’s different. And his team is also made up with people from lots of different backgrounds, different cultures, and different personalities and stuff, so you know, I learned a lot about that as well.”

“Also you understand your flaws. You’re getting thrown in at the deep end, working with, you know, someone as great as he is. So, you know, also shows up some of the things that you probably need to improve on as well, if you want to be a great coach.

[asked whether Novak ‘has another major win in him’]  [emphatically] “I think that he does. The difficulty, I think, when you get to the age that he’s at is that, if you play too much tennis, you risk injury, potentially, or not being fresh for the majors, which, obviously you need to be. But then if you’re not competing enough and your body is not sort of, match-hardened, and ready to play seven matches across two weeks. It is also difficult, very difficult, physically and, you know, like, last year, made the semis at all four majors but I think had… he’s definitely had three injuries during those events. And, you know, that’s the balancing act. It has to be a perfect preparation with enough match play, enough training. And then yeah, you could see still, at the Australian Open this year and last year with the results that he had, beating Alcaraz, beating Sinner, that he still, you know, still has the potential to do it.

[about the Sinner-Alcaraz domination] “I think it’s gonna be really interesting to see what happens because they’re both obviously amazing players, quite different styles… they both seem to be really really good people and seem to really like each other as well, which is nice – I personally think it’s really nice to see. […] There’s a huge gap I think between where they are and the guys behind them but you never know. There could be an 18, 19 year old, 17 year old out there that in the next couple of years is of their level

“He’s not just one of the best tennis players, he’s one of the best athletes of all time […] Novak, like myself, is a challenging character in terms of the way he goes about his tennis, is extremely demanding, and I fully expected that. I look back on it and I’m glad that I did it. It’s an amazing experience that I’ve had. I’ve learnt a bit. Obviously didn’t last that long. But I put everything into it that I had, like, I tried my hardest to help him.”

“I watched him play, in that tournament [AO 2025], like, ridiculous tennis. In my opinion. I saw him play some amazing tennis there. Speaking to his team about that, I’m just like ‘so so good, so impressive what he’s doing.’”

“After the injury it was certainly a difficult few months, certainly for him but also for the team and all of us.”

“Probably didn’t get the results I would have liked for him, but I learnt a lot, I learnt a lot about what coaching is”

“Made some good relationships along the way with his team as well. I stay in touch with quite a few of the team members.”

he’s not entirely happy with the coaching pods at AO because “it’s not a good place to watch tennis from” and says the coaches should have the best seats in the house i.e. best view of the court. the pod was great for communication but it was difficult to see what was going on during a point

he didn’t find the matches that stressful, it was more the buildup, lots of things needing to be done in the leadup to a match (making sure the racquets are right, the practice court is booked, the practice partner is appropriate, preparing videos, going over strategy). he wasn’t asked by Novak to do all these things himself but viewed them as part of his job and wanted to do them, to be in control of them and make sure everything is done right

“obviously, sometimes before the matches the player needs a bit of encouragement, a bit of motivation or something as well – trying to make sure you find the right words, the right moments to do those things”

[about whether he does a good pep talk] “You’d have to ask Novak”

“it’s important for a coach to bring a good energy, you don’t want, on an important day, that your team comes out and is super flat but also nervous energy is not, in my opinion, what a player needs before they walk on to play a semifinal, final of a grand slam […] a bit of confidence as well, so that the player feels like you believe in them. Whether or not I did that well I don’t know, I’d have to… Novak would have to answer that.”

[asked whether anything about Novak’s training surprised him] “No I wouldn’t say so. Because I’ve played against him a lot. I also practiced with him a lot, particularly in our younger years. Been in the gym with him a lot at tournaments and things.”

“Actually, it’s quite… well, I think it’s a funny story anyway. On the first day I started working with him I turned up to the training camp and we did the practice session. Which [snickers], his team were all kind of laughing at me because, whilst Novak was warming up I was out on the court, practicing my feeding. Like, warming up my feeding. Which they were like ‘I’ve never seen anyone do that before’ And I was like, well, as a player I used to hate it when the coach fed poorly […] But then after the tennis session his physical trainer was like ‘Oh Novak is going for a long slow run in the park later, would you mind joining him’ and I was like, oh my god, I didn’t run since I was about 25. On the court I did, but it was never part of my training. And I was like, it’s my first day on the job, like I can’t say I’m not doing this. I’m like ‘yeah yeah no worries I’ll do that’; bearing in mind that I also hadn’t been staying in great shape since I finished. I mean I had been training a bit, but not loads. I told him that and he was like ‘it’s fine, it’s gonna be a gentle run. Anyway I went, and I think it was about 50 minutes he was running for and it was in a park and it was kind of up, quite a few hills in there. Very slow pace. But after four or five minutes my left calf cramped. And I was like ‘oh noo’. But I can’t say anything, like, this is embarrassing. You know, like after four or five minutes. And anyway, I finished, I completed the 50 minutes; I was in so much pain. And when I finished I said to his team ‘guys, you need to help me out here’ […] I felt like I couldn’t stop, like I didn’t want to show to him, like, oh my god there’s someone I’ve been competing against for such a long time and after five minutes, you know, he’s struggling, training with me. So, I did tough it out but was a pretty embarrassing moment for me.”

[asked whether Novak was testing him with that] “That run should not have been a test, it was so slow. We would all have been able to complete it. I don’t know what happened, if it was just because I hadn’t run for a long time or if I was dehydrated or nerves or whatever.”

preparations for the Carlos match at AO were done during the off season, Andy spent a lot of time with Novak’s analyst trying to figure out patterns of play that would work well for Novak vs. ‘guys like Alcaraz and Sinner’; he thinks you have to do this kind of work during the off season “and not enough people do”

[whether he’s proud he coached Novak to winning a match vs. Carlos] “Uhm… yeah. I mean, wasn’t me that won that match. Novak won that match. And he could win that match whether I’m sitting there or not. But I did the best I can to help him in that match.”

“The thing that’s hard with tennis is that I think the strategy […] was quite clear. But there’s a difference between seeing a strategy and actually going out on the court and executing it as well as he did. And my opinion is that there’s very few people in the world who can do that. So you could give a guy ranked 50 in the world the best strategy to win against Alcaraz but he’s still probably going to win that match. Whereas Novak is that good that he’s able to execute a strategy perfectly - because he is so good. So yeah, I felt like the strategy for the match was a good one, but he played a ridiculous tennis match as well [tiny proud smile]. And that’s why he won the match.”

he had trouble going to sleep after that match because he was still buzzing from it. “It was so good to watch. I loved it. I loved being part of that match and being courtside, it was awesome. I would say winning as a player and being the one on the court still would be a greater feeling. But it was still really, really special.”

right until the end of his career he enjoyed getting up in the morning to practice and trying to find ways to get better

he doesn’t feel like he misses competition, he wouldn’t mind experiencing winning Wimbledon again, but he doesn’t miss trying to get there, and he doesn’t feel the need to fill the void of competition with something else

“I gave everything I had to the sport. I don’t look back with any regret. Well, there’s things I would do differently if I could have another go at it but I feel like I gave everything.”

if he had another go he would have trained slightly differently and taken more breaks, would have enjoyed the successes more

the hip was pretty bad by 2016 and he struggled a lot throughout the year in long matches, especially five setters, it impacted the serve in particular; that year he lost multiple matches from 2 sets up which was unusual for him and his hip was hurting badly throughout those and he knew it was impacting the serve

he was on the player council when the masters series got changed to 2 week events and he was ‘completely against’ that change, ATP reasoned there would be less injuries (more recovery time between matches), he argued against it by saying players then don’t have time to recover between matches. he feels like there’s more mental fatigue now because of that, the amount of time players are on the road is an issue

while he was competing his own achievements felt insignificant because there were these guys getting to 10, 15, 20 Grand Slams; he sometimes felt rubbish as no 3 or 4 in the world and like getting to the final of the AO for the 5th time was a terrible result and [sarcastically] “you know, the media will also help you feel that way at times, as well”

“sport is difficult in that sense in that you have a great achievement and you’re made to feel like it is a failure as well”

his daughter finished 7th out of 100 in a race and he was very proud of her; compares this to feeling like a disaster when he finished second (i.e. lost a final) in a Slam

if he comes across a video of himself playing on socmed now, he likes watching himself and feels like he played well, whereas during his career he would have picked apart the imperfections

in the matchup with Roger it helped him that he had watched Roger playing a lot when he was growing up; in the big matches he found it tough psychologically to see past the aura

he says he’s “fully aware of where I sit in the pecking order” when it comes to the big 4 and that what the other 3 achieved on the court was “far superior”

is clearly aware people sometimes question the 'big 4' and says he wouldn't have shown up at Rafa's retirement uninvited (and also will only go to Novak's retirement if he gets asked)

gets asked about how Rafa was different to play against on grass than on clay and launches into a long explanation of how Rafa served differently and how serves behave differently on different surfaces and how the shot can be used tactically (ca. minute 49)

[during a technical discussion of Roger playing more offensive against him over time] “my second serve was. um. average. at best.”

Novak was a difficult matchup for him because “very similar gamestyle, but everything was just a little bit better”, the only area where he felt like he was stronger was at the net, but difficult to exploit that because you can’t try to bring him forward every single point

he loved that before on court coaching the player had to decide for themselves when a strategy wasn’t working (and is it not working because of bad execution or because of the opponent coming up with something unexpected or was it just a bad plan all along)

he says Rafa was brilliant at adjusting strategy during matches but gets a little barb in: “he did always get a little bit of additional help from Toni”

wearable technology was only allowed on the ATP tour last year so he feels like tennis is quite behind in that compared to other sports, and data has also only become available to many players recently, top players used to pay a lot of money for it and gain an advantage based on it

Kim put up a trophy cabinet when they moved house “it’s downstairs, out of the way” [it must be pretty big?] “yeah it’s pretty big, decent… decent size”, he’s fine with the trophies being there but “I don’t go and look at them daily”

his kids sometimes wear the Olympic medals (“and I was quite precious about them at the beginning but now I’m like. whatever, yeah. it’s fine.”)

he was competitive about getting as many Olympic pins as possible (“you get rejected all the time” because most people want a good pin in exchange) and got most of his tennis teammates into it too

things he would change in tennis: (age-related and other) exemptions for participating in all the masters; a two year ranking system so players feel less pressure to compete constantly (but difficult to achieve because it messes up records and their comparability)

he loved bo5 as a player, more time to figure your opponent out, but he wouldn’t watch a full bo5 match now probably (“I have a family, I’ve got other things to do”)

for things to actually change in tennis, players will have to be very clear and agree on what they want to change (e.g. lower ranked players might not want to play less, top players do; top players liked the new mixed doubles format at USO, lots of doubles players hated it etc.)

says that the new planned masters event in Saudi would have been difficult for him to turn down as a player (whereas he always turned down exhibitions there) because it’s a mandatory event on the tour; also acknowledges that it’s tricky to say that the tour shouldn’t go there purely based on the human rights record when the tour goes to lots of other places that are questionable in that regard as well

“heavier” tennis balls problem comes from players hitting harder and courts becoming grainier; could be solved by balls being changed earlier/more often during matches

says he hated being on the player council because it was frustrating but went back and did it a second time because he was asked to; players aren’t well educated enough to have informed conversations on lots of the topics

the schedule could be improved by having AO 2 weeks later (but they don’t want to do it because currently it’s in the school holidays there)

favourite thing he gets to do now that he couldn’t do while he was playing is skiing

he’s given up on cooking because he would panic when he was following instructions and something wasn’t going right, he had no idea how to adjust to that “so then I retired from cooking as well as tennis” [grins]; his four-year-old would let him know when something wasn’t quite right

his oldest daughter had trouble adjusting to him getting attention when he was going somewhere with her; he talks about how she just recently allowed him to walk next to her on the way to the car for the first time

talks about his six-year-old getting into board games and just like he launches into tennis analysis he describes his son’s strategy and tactical errors at monopoly

has a snooker table at home bc he used to play him a lot, his wife gifted it to him after the 2016 season and it never gets used anymore

preferred the tournament in Shanghai to Beijing

whether he’s used to hearing “Sir Andy Murray”: says he spends most of his time with friends and family these days where that title doesn’t get used a lot :D

says his mum played tennis nationally but wasn’t an amazing player

he was “not good” at tennis in the beginning, his mum told him later that at the time she thought he was terrible in comparison to Jamie

other sports he did as a kid: table tennis, golf, badminton, squash, gymnastics

now as a dad he realises what a big commitment it was for his parents to get him and his brother to competitions all across the UK once they got better

when he moved to Spain as a 15 year old he was still studying for school but he doesn’t have any formal qualifications and regrets that and would advise his kids to stay in school in the same situation, “I wish I’d spent more time focusing on my education”

he regrets that he didn’t learn more Spanish while in Spain (he went to an American school there) and says how Brits are lazy with learning languages “because we can get away with it” seeing as so many people speak English

moving to Spain was also the moment where he felt like tennis became his job, that’s when he knew he was serious about it as a career

the training in Spain was probably “too intense”, 5-6 hours a day with a break and school in the middle, 5 days a week

“across all sports, everyone has worked hard – if you want to become great, you have to work hard” but there’s different ways to go about it, for example the big 3 all had very different styles of training

both in tennis and in golf you can easily recognise an amateur by the fact they don’t follow through for long enough after a shot

he’s “not a massive believer in talent, that someone is born to play [a certain sport]”, he thinks genetics must play a role but people wouldn’t have gotten to the place they are without working hard, or having family members take them to places where they can play the sport, or having someone encourage/push them to pursue it

“at the very, very top, the best players are the ones who are the strongest mentally” – generally, but there’s always outliers and “people who that are unbelievably good at what they do, and they’re headcases”

he feels like his first breakthrough win came actually in practice, there were top 10 players at the academy in Spain that he got to play with and he was “doing alright” against them in practice sessions

it was funny as a 15 year old when he was playing there against top players bc his friends from the academy would hang over the fence and “behave so obnoxiously”

when he was part of the Davis Cup team as a hitting partner for Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski and felt like he could compete with them “that gave me a bit of confidence”; and then the US Open Junior title win at 17

he never thought about “winning for Scotland” when he was playing but was always very touched by people in Scotland being proud of him

at Wimbledon he didn’t feel he was playing for the British fans or for the public first and foremost, but he did feel the pressure to perform because of their expectations. particularly towards the end of the tournament it was tough, “you try to block it out as much as you can but it’s not easy”

the main point of using sports psychology for him was to come up with routines and coping mechanisms

if he were to play tennis left-handed he would “probably do alright against and amateur, a club-level player”

“Djokovic, when I was helping him” used to warm up a bit with the left hand (interesting to me that he rarely says “coaching”, he always says he was “helping” Novak)

about whether he had friends at the top of the game while he was playing: “not at the top of the game”; he often practiced with Rafa and Novak but only at the start of his career with Roger, who after a year or two stopped practicing with him (and also never practiced with Rafa and Novak anymore), Andy liked practicing with them as a chance to see where his game was at “but I was never going to dinner with them, whereas now I would love to do that”

“you can’t really be totally open” with a rival, and when he’s socialising with friends and family he wants to be e.g. able to tell them he’s been struggling with something, but you can’t do that with a rival

a weakness he would have loved to fix was his second serve, he feels like he didn’t spent enough time thinking about technique while he was playing and that it was a technical flaw he could have done something about

endless ball bouncing gets mentioned and Andy says that can be “a bit of a yip” for some players; Novak gets mentioned by Stephen Hendry as someone who bounces the ball an irritating amount of times, Andy does not react to that comment at all

technical changes towards the end of your career are difficult to implement bc you tend to not stick to them when they’re not working immediately, and you know at the back of your mind that you don’t have much time left in your career

throughout Andy comments on his own performance at Snooker, sometimes with “that’s a good shot, that felt good”, but mostly with “ah, that’s so poor”

proudest career moment is the gold medal in London; when talking about how important the Olympics are to tennis players he uses Novak’s win in Paris as an example, remarking on the fact that he was “significantly more emotional” there than when winning any of his slams

about playing golf several hours a day: “I love practicing”

“nothing is gonna replace playing tennis” but he needed the routine of something he can play and try to get better at; “it filled a little bit of that void” of the tennis routine and practice

his golf handicap is down to 1.4 now and has improved this quickly “because I have no job”