At the end of 2007, Andy Murray teamed up with Miles Maclagan as his new coach.  Maclagan didn’t have the playing pedigree that some of Murray’s previous coaches had but he had one huge plus.  He wasn’t Brad Gilbert.

Everyone knows that Gilbert famously coached Andre Agassi.  Up to that point, Agassi often used his power to win matches.  However, his knowledge of opponents and strategy was woeful.  Gilbert was the opposite.  He lacked huge shots.  He wasn’t quick.  His serve was good, but not great.  However, he understood what bothered players.  He would do the pro equivalent of pushing the ball.  Jimmy Arias was once frustrated that Gilbert was beating him with his off-pace shots.

For a time, Gilbert was Roddick’s coach in the one year that Roddick won a Slam, the 2003 US Open.  However, Gilbert is an intense personality.  He wants to be there all the time.  He wants you to see the world as he sees it.  The relationship didn’t last.  He was paired up with Andy Murray, but the two quarreled fighting over how Murray should play the game, so Murray parted ways with Gilbert.

The first order of business when Murray teamed up with Maclagan was to build a bigger team which included Jez Green, Andy Ireland, and so forth.  This team would help him recover after matches with massages, but also work on agility, and most importantly, fitness.  The plan was to keep Murray a lot fitter than he had been.  Murray had often faded in long matches, and this fitness was what separated him from Federer and Nadal whose endurance seemed to know no bounds.

Although Murray’s rank would rise from 6 to 4, he struggled to reach his second Slam final.  He made the US Open final in 2008, and was soundly beaten by Roger Federer.  2009 was not good Slam-wise for Murray.  Murray fell ill at the 2009 Australian Open losing to Fernando Verdasco in five sets in the fourth round.  At the French, Murray actually played his best French Open reaching the quarterfinals where he lost to Fernando Gonzalez.  Wimbledon was his best Slam where he reached the semifinals for the first time, losing to Andy Roddick in four sets.  Murray had a disappointing US Open losing easily to Marin Cilic in the fourth round.

2010 was a bit better for Andy Murray.  He reached his second Slam final at the Australian Open losing once again in straight sets to Roger Federer.  Murray lost to eventual semifinalist, Tomas Berdych, in the fourth round of the French Open.  He again reached the semis of Wimbledon, losing to Rafael Nadal.  He lost early at the US Open to Stan Wawrinka in the third round, possibly a result of the fatigue he felt in Cincinnati.

Murray had, in 2009, added Alex Corretja to assist him in clay events, and his presence became more pronounced.  Corretja had reached a Slam final when he was a touring pro, something Maclagan never came close to doing, and was starting to have more influence in the Murray coaching staff.  Maclagan was beginning to feel squeezed out and discussed it with Murray.  The two parted way in July 2010.  Although Corretja served as coach for another 9 months, the two split after Miami right before the clay season.

Murray had said he was interested in getting a higher caliber coach.  Federer has looked at Darren Cahill, who coached Agassi after Agassi split with Gilbert.  However, Cahill couldn’t commit because of his announcing duties and his desire not to spend so many weeks on the road.  Murray, too, had expressed interest in working with Cahill, but Cahill pretty much said the same thing.

Murray is a smart player.  He knows what he needs to do to get better.  He designated Dani Vallverdu as his coach, but everyone knew that wasn’t really his true role.  Vallverdu was someone Murray met back in Spain when he was a teenager, and the two had been good friends.  Vallverdu didn’t really have a pro career of note, but Murray was probably happy to have someone that he felt comfortable with.  Murray would get some advice from Cahill as time permitted as well as his mother, but more than likely, he crafted his own strategy and bounced ideas off the rest of his team.

Recall that Federer did without a coach for a long time, getting assistance from Severin Luthi, friend and Davis Cup coach, who would advise him at Slams, but otherwise did not have the official title.  Federer added Paul Annacone to his team.

On December 31, Andy Murray announced Ivan Lendl as his coach.  Lendl has never coached full-time.  Indeed, until last year, his back had hurt him so much that he played very little tennis.  He finally found someone that could treat it, and he’s been able to play some limited tennis.

Lendl is an intriguing choice.  He’s often called the father of modern tennis.  He was the first player to learn that topspin allowed you to hit the ball much harder but still maintain control.  While he hits far fewer winners off the baseline than today’s pros, he hit a lot for players of his day who rarely hit winners because it was error-prone to hit that hard and flat and not clip the net.

Lendl had a huge serve for a baseliner and a huge forehand.  The combination allowed him to dominate much weaker players.  However, he was steady enough to win long rallies and would often engage in them especially against players like Borg.   This power game allowed him to be very successful on hardcourts where traditional European baseliners won primarily on clay but struggled on faster surfaces where the lack of a big serve or any other weapon left them vulnerable to a good serve and volleyer.

In a way, players like Lendl began to signal an end to serve and volley tennis.  Serve and volleyers would continue to play well until about 2000, but players like Lendl began showing how baseliners could beat net chargers.

But Lendl did more than introduce the idea of a big forehand as the dominant weapon (which was taken further by the Bollettieri kids, most notably, Agassi, but including Arias and Krickstein).  He looked at other ideas to improve his game.  He looked at diet.  He did weight work.  He hired Warren Bosworth to carefully calibrate all his racquets so they weighed and balanced exactly the same.  He even decided that tension loss might affect his play so he rotated racquets every ball change, something that Roger Federer also does.

Lendl tried to plan out as much as he could.  To win the US Open, he had the people that laid the courts at Flushing Meadows redo his court at New Haven.  To win Wimbledon, something Lendl never quite did, he worked with Tony Roche on his serve-and-volley game so convinced he was that this was the proper way to win Wimbledon.  Unfortunately, Lendl wasn’t willing to fully commit to this style of play and only used it for a few weeks each year, in particular, Wimbledon.

Lendl also routinely invited top juniors to hit with him so he could get a feel for who was coming up.  This may have worked to his disadvantage as he hit with Pete Sampras who was not really scared of him when he beat him in 1990.  Even so, it was one way he was able to play high quality players outside of tournaments.

All these ideas had great influence, particularly on Roger Federer, who changes his racquets like Lendl did.  Federer has invited left-handers to hit with him.  Federer has even gone further, working on all sorts of balance and agility drills.  He spends time working out in very hot weather to simulate the heat at the Australian Open.  He also has a physio that checks how his body is doing, and skips tournaments if he thinks this will aid in recovery.  This past year, he bowed out of Shanghai because he felt he needed the additional rest.  Federer has spent time working on mental toughness, something that bothered him early in his career.  Now he takes pride in his ability to beat players mentally.

Ivan Lendl has shown, despite his years away from the game, that his mind is still pretty sharp.  One could easily see why John McEnroe keeps up with the game because of his job as commentator, but Lendl wasn’t a commentator, but still has an encyclopedic knowledge of the game, even as he no longer actively participates.  Has over a decade away from the game given him all sorts of ideas that he never put into action, but can now do with Andy Murray?

Lendl certainly can empathize with Murray.  Lendl lost his first four Slams (1981 French Open, 1982 US Open, 1982 Australian Open, 1983 US Open) and barely won his first Slam in 1984 French Open at the age of 24.  Lendl would win 8 Slams, but he would lose in the finals of 9.  Indeed, had every result been flipped, Lendl would have had 2 Wimbledon wins, 5 US Open wins, 2 French Opens, and 2 Australian Opens, but as it was, he never won Wimbledon.  Lendl may have won a smaller percentage of Slams than his contemporaries, but he reached numerous Slam finals and eventually that sheer number helped.

Lendl has his hands full with getting Murray over the hump.  When Lendl was getting to the top, he had to deal with McEnroe at his prime, Connors past his prime, and Wilander trying to work his way up.  Then, beyond Wilander, it became players like Becker and Edberg that gave Lendl trouble, then Sampras and Agassi later on.  There was no period of time during Lendl’s career where good players stopped coming up.

For Murray, he’s the same age as Nadal and Djokovic and those two look like they could be good for many years.  There’s no one, outside of Juan Martin del Potro, that appears poised to be good following these guys, and it may be 2-3 years more before the next group potentially gets good enough.  However, with Federer still playing well, and Nadal also playing well and Djokovic playing better than he ever has, the question is how to get Murray even better.  Lendl, at least, hit harder than pretty much everyone he played until Becker and Agassi got good.  That power bought him a lot of tennis goodwill.

Murray potentially has power, but he doesn’t use it with any consistency.  He may be concerned that what happened to del Potro could happen to him which is a wrist injury.  He’s shown more interest in hitting with power, but he doesn’t spin the ball nearly as much as either Nadal, Djokovic, or Federer.

The thinking is that it’s not just mental, but that he needs to do something that hurts his opponents consistently.  Against Rafa, Murray isn’t nearly so powerful and steady.  It’s basically the same problem Federer has.  Against Djokovic, Murray can at least expect flatter balls and keep somewhat more even.  However, it’s still about outhitting Djokovic.  Against Federer, it’s mostly keeping up with Federer and preventing him from dominating points.  Murray has long opted for big serves leading to easy points, even as it means he must play bigger on second serves.  Meanwhile, players like Nadal are happy serving 70% and letting their ground games do the work.

More than likely, there won’t be much in the way of technical changes.  It will mostly be mental work and strategy.  But we’ll see.  Murray begins play in Brisbane.  The likelihood is Lendl’s influence won’t pay off until closer to the French since they’ve only just announced the partnership, unless Lendl was in conversations in December.  However, that was mostly Murray doing his usual December training, so perhaps Lendl wasn’t as important then?  Only time will tell.