When Murray packs it in he can't have any regrets about career choices, says Mark Petchey

Players Under the Microscope / Editor / 25 January 2008 / Leave a Comment

Betfair spoke exclusively to Mark Petchey about Andy Murray's first round exit at the Australian Open, career choices and GB's chances in the Davis Cup against Argentina

Andy Murray's bright hopes for the Australian Open didn't last long and as another tennis campaign gets underway it's hard to know what's next for the new British hope. Betfair customers aren't even sure Murray will finish the year in the top ten (It's [2.54] he doesn't make it). So we thought it would be worth asking Murray's first coach and now Sky TV pundit Mark Petchey, the man who first helped him get onto the world scene, what he thought.

Andy had a very good start to the year and then Australia was everything he hopes it wouldn't be. How do you assess it?

It's easy to get a little over reactive. If you look at what Jo-Wilfried Tsonga has done since, beating Mikhail Youzhny and Rafael Nadal to get to the fianl, the result as it stands now certainly doesn't look as bad as it did at the start of the tournament. I just felt it underlined the difficulty that Andy will face in his career, as Tim Henman did. Tim at least had the benefit of Greg Rusedski taking some pressure off at times, but when you are the only world class player in your country there's a lot of emphasis on every single match you play, and that can be quite a big burden to carry.

Is Andy showing any signs of getting better at dealing with that and being more mature?

I don't think he was ever immature. He made that one comment after the Australian Open previously about the pressure he was feeling, but in some ways that was just him being honest. It's not so much about his maturity , it is more about how he can deal with the pressure he will always be feeling. Look - everybody in life is on a personal journey and it will take however long it takes for Andy to win a Grand Slam, which I'm sure he will do. Whether it will be this year, next year or the year after nobody can tell, but I think it will happen. He had a wonderful start to 2008 year in Doha, winning the Qatar Open and obviously expectations were high. Maybe that's why the low seems a lot lower, because the expectations were so big going into it. I'm sure if you go back there's been a number of very successful players who were disappointing at times, and then suddenly found the way to create consistency so you just have to hope it will happen for him.

There's been criticism of his new backroom team and his decision to drop Brad Gilbert as his coach so soon. Is he right to have kept changing things?

It's more than 18 months now since he decided he didn't want to work with me any more, but even now it's difficult for me to put a real sense of objectivity on it, because I was pretty involved in the first part of his career. We tried to part on good terms and have stayed in touch since, and I just feel that ultimately it is his career and he's got to make the decisions that he feels comfortable with. When he turns around at the end of his career he has to have no regrets, and I think you have to understand that from his perspective. He's the one going out to try to win a Grand Slam, he's the one who has to take the praise and the criticism, so he has to be comfortable in the scenario around him and if he's not then he's well within his rights to chop and change.

But shouldn't he have given the relationship with Brad Gilbert, who has a fantastic record for creating champions, more time to be successful?

Listen, Tim Henman was criticised because for years in his career he stayed loyal to David Felgate for years when some people thought he should have gone to somebody like Brad. You are damned if you do, and damned if you don't. People will say Andy is hard and ruthless, but that surely is a good trait to become a successful sportsman. You need that part of you to be there so you do get through. At the end the coaching thing is important and I wouldn't belittle coaches or even myself for the job I did with Andy early in his career, but ultimately it's the sportsman who is out there and is either hitting a first serve on a match point, or a seven iron into the green to win a Masters. There's only so much you can do as a coach, and the rest of it comes down to the player's characteristics. Maybe in a team environment it's far more important to have somebody of that ilk, to have Sir Alex Ferguson or somebody driving the team, but in an individual environment the make up is whether the individual can handle the pressure.

So what will be the key things for Andy for the rest of the year?

He's going to find that things have changed for him. He's very much a hunted player on the tour now, where for the first couple of years he was very much the hunter. That's a whole different perspective. Every time he steps on court he has to deal with that, that the other guy will be raising his game.

You mentioned team sports, what prospects do Britain have for the Davis Cup tie against Argentina next month?

To be honest, not a lot. We clearly have two world class players in Andy and his brother Jamie, even if Jamie hasn't been having the best of times lately he's still a top doubles player. If Britain were to win it would be the most remarkable effort of all time. On a heavy clay court we are basically starting that match, with all due respect to Alex Bogdanovic and Jamie Baker, two love down. So how much pressure is that again? Andy will go in knowing one slip up from him and that's it. For years we had a two man team in the Davis Cup and we've almost got a one man team now.

Is there anybody on the horizon that could change things?

Not necessarily. I've said my pieces over the years about what I think and how it could be better. Even if you ask people within the game to talk privately it seems nobody is getting too excited about the prospects of anybody. Maybe somebody will come along and creep into the top 100, but I don't see anybody of world class stature that's coming through. Dan Evans was seeded three at the Aussie juniors and can play a bit, but you're still asking a lot. There's nobody I've seen or heard of that will change things from a British perspective.

Thanks for your time Mark - even if there wasn't much good news to tell us! We always invite Betfair Big Interview subjects to have a free £50 bet for charity.

I've been living in South Africa for just over a year now, but I still follow English football with a passion so I've been intrigued to watch Kevin Keegan's arrival at Newcastle. I fancy backing him in the FA Cup to give Arsenal their second shock of the week. The Toon are [7.8] to win at The Emirates which I hope might give a nice windfall to Great Ormond Street hospital. They've just lost the income as their copyright to Peter Pan has expired, and I know need all the help that can be found.