Former British No 1 revealed his shock invitation to work with former rival arrived when he was playing golf
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Andy Murray (right) and Novak Djokovic (left)
The blockbuster partnership between Sir Andy Murray (right) and Novak Djokovic will make its debut in Melbourne Credit: Reuters/Edgar Su
Simon Briggs
Tennis Correspondent
09 January 2025 7:50am GMT
Simon Briggs
Sir Andy Murray has revealed that his shock invitation to work with Novak Djokovic arrived when he was on the golf course – just as he was telling his playing partner that “I can’t imagine anything worse” than coaching.
In his first interview since the news broke in early December, Murray explained that he had been enjoying his time away from the tennis tour, which he quit last August.
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Had the invitation come from anyone but Djokovic – his old nemesis – he would have turned it down in a flash. But this was such a unique opportunity that he could not resist the challenge.
What we have all been waiting for…
Andy Murray has arrived in Melbourne to begin his partnership with Novak Djokovic 🤝#AO2025 pic.twitter.com/sk8tf4CwiM
— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 7, 2025
“I was actually playing golf, and we’d actually been exchanging messages,” Murray said. “Novak had messaged me, just wanting to chat. It was just before Shanghai [which started on October 2], and we’d exchanged messages and missed calls and stuff. Then eventually, I was on the 17th hole of the golf course, and the guy I was playing with said to me, ‘Do you know what’s next?’. I was like, ‘No, not really’. He said ‘Do you have any plans to do any coaching?’ And I said, ‘Honestly, I can’t think of anything worse to do right now’.
“And then 30 minutes later, I was in the car and I called Novak, and then we had a conversation, and he asked if I would be interested in helping, which I obviously wasn’t expecting. I said to him, ‘Look, I need to think about it and talk to my family’. So I spoke to them, and after a couple of days, I thought that it was a pretty unique opportunity and experience. And I thought it would be a good idea to try it together, and spend some time in the off-season through Australia and see how it goes for both of us, because it’s a little bit different. It’s not the usual kind of set-up. So it made sense to trial it and see if it works. And then we said we’d make a more definitive decision after the tournament.”
Murray’s wife supportive of idea
Golf had been Murray’s main preoccupation in the second half of last year, as he brought his handicap down from seven in early September to two by the end of that month.
After years on the road, he was also spending much more time with his wife Kim and four children. But when he raised the possibility of taking up this latest role, Kim was in favour. One important factor was the sense that, while Murray could potentially extend this coaching role beyond the end of the Australian Open, he is still working with a player who is approaching retirement. It is not exactly going to be a life sentence.
“My wife was very supportive of it,” Murray explained, shortly after coming off the training court in Melbourne. “I was actually going to be in Australia anyway for a few days during the tournament. She was surprised, obviously, that he’d asked me, but she was really supportive of it. Maybe if it was a younger player, where it was maybe long term, [you] might be looking at five, six years potentially… I’m not sure that that’s necessarily the case with Novak, but you never know if he’s doing well!”
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