Andy Murray’s split with Dani Vallverdu after five years together is, on the face of it, a curious one.
The Venezuelan – whom he has known since they shared digs in Barcelona as teenagers at the Sánchez-Casal Academy – appeared to be the rock in the Scot’s team; his friend and confidant, someone who sublimated his ego to help Murray win big titles – which, as Ivan Lendl generously pointed out after his own coaching stint had finished in March, is how it all panned out. Dani, Lendl said, was vital to Murray’s success – even though he did not have the top job.
Nobody understood his physical capacity and idiosyncrasies better. He was invariably the one Murray turned to for quiet, sensible advice. Dani didn’t shout, but Murray listened.
He will be replaced, almost certainly before the Australian Open, and Amélie Mauresmo, who succeeded Lendl in June, will be further entrenched as the player’s sole adviser and strategist. That really is where the tension arose. Vallverdu, who has excellent tactical awareness as well as ambitions to be recognised as a coach in his own right, was seriously upset when Murray did not consult him about Mauresmo’s appointment.
To find out from the media that he had another coach installed above him again left a wound – as it did on Jez Green, who has been Murray’s physical conditioner for seven years and is also leaving the team.
Murray chose to make the latest announcement by email while preparing in Manila for the upcoming brief, low-key but well-paid International Premier Tennis League. It echoed the odd timing of his appointment of Mauresmo; on the afternoon of the French Open final, also by prepared statement, when he could have spoken to the media in person only a couple of days earlier. Still, Murray does things his own way.
While the Philippines venture will earn him a lot of money, it will cut into his winter training programme in Miami – which Murray has always insisted is the building block of his entire season.
His whole life, of course, now takes a different turn, after the revelation on Wednesday that Kim Sears has accepted his proposal of marriage after eight years of intense media speculation. I understand he asked her last Wednesday and, true to his quirky view of the world, imagined it would remain a secret until the wedding day, which has yet to be set. Murray got in the wedding mood last Saturday, when best man at the wedding of Ross Hutchins, the recently retired doubles player and one of his oldest friends.
He returns to London from Manila early next week, leaves for Miami on 6 or 7 December, flies back to the UK to spend Christmas with family and friends and plays his first tournament on 1 January in Abu Dhabi. That is a hectic schedule with a lot of extra travelling, and is way different from the rigid programme he has employed for the past seven Decembers. Instead of six weeks hitting the gym and the long, sandy beaches of Miami, he will have maybe three weeks there.
That is one reason Green is going. When Murray sat down with Green, Vallverdu, Mauresmo and his physio and trainer Matt Little at the end of the season, he told them he needed to reassess his schedule and training programme. Since his back operation in September last year, he has struggled to find rhythm as his body settles in around the surgery. Only now is Murray near to full fitness – up to about 95%, as he put it before the ATP World Tour Finals in London two weeks ago, where he went out in desultory fashion, thrashed in under an hour by Roger Federer.
It was an embarrassing exit, and clearly it hurt the 27-year-old, making change almost inevitable.
I understand Green’s departure had been on the cards for some time, as Murray did not consider he needed both him and Little. As Green, who has a background in martial arts, was the one pushing him hardest in training, he was the one who had to go. Vallverdu, meanwhile, will probably get a proper coaching job soon enough.
There are plenty of players on the Tour who would appreciate the input of someone who has spent five years with Andy Murray. The party line on this was that it was “mutually agreed”. I tend to believe that, although there is probably no way Vallverdu and Green would have wanted to go. More than likely they were well compensated.
Oddly, however, they seemed to have finally accepted Mauresmo after early reservations, but Murray’s uneven season did not help their cause. The word is there was no shouting at their final sit-down, no recriminations, no ultimatums, just a lot of grown-up conversation. They all parted as friends. You would trust that it was exactly like that.
It is Vallverdu who probably had greater reason to be miffed. It was no secret he resented the public perception of him as “training partner”. He was, as Murray always acknowledged, far more than that. Up until Vienna, Vallverdu’s last gig with Murray, the player regularly made a point of mentioning him alongside Mauresmo as part of his coaching team. Perhaps he was letting him down gently. Maybe he was just being kind. He is a considerate person, after all. However, as someone close to him pointed out, he can also be ruthless .
Vallverdu’s replacement will not be as influential, and is more likely to be an experienced ex pro who can help with organisation and double as Murray’s regular hitting partner. The Scot will not replace Green – which might be some sort of backhanded compliment for one of the nicest men in tennis. He can always say he was irreplaceable.
So now, Murray will turn to more Pilates and Bikram yoga, more science than brutal, body-breaking work, as he enters the new phase of his career. In London a fortnight ago, he talked about playing on for another five or six years. He is 27, so that is a reasonable target, if he can manage a body that takes more strain than most.
