The blockbuster partnership will make its tournament debut in Melbourne next week
Sports News Correspondent
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MELBOURNE — Andy Murray says he told a friend he “couldn’t think of anything worse” than returning to tour as a tennis coach just minutes before Novak Djokovic offered him a job.
Murray, 37, started work as Djokovic’s coach in December and is in Melbourne for the Australian Open alongside the 10-time champion.
But the former world No 1 says he was not even three months retired when his great rival got in touch to tempt him back to tennis.
“I was actually playing golf,” Murray, who has made a scratch golf handicap one of his post-career goals, told reporters in Australia, speaking about the link-up for the first time.
“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’.
“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.”
The news was eventually confirmed in late November with Murray then jetting out to Marbella, Djokovic’s training base, for a week-long camp in December.
They have subsequently only worked together for another week in Melbourne, Murray having prioritised spending Christmas and New Year with his family instead of joining Djokovic at a tournament in Brisbane.
“[When the offer came] I spoke to my family, and after a couple of days, I thought that it was a pretty unique opportunity and experience,” Murray added.
“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.”
He also said: “My wife was very supportive of it. 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! But she was very supportive.”
Djokovic will face American wildcard Nishesh Basavareddy in the first round of the Australian Open.
