MELBOURNE — Andy Murray has shared plenty of embraces with Novak Djokovic on the Rod Laver Arena.
Up until now, they had all been across a net after hours of heated battle. Five times in six years they met as professionals at the Australian Open and Djokovic won all five, four of them in finals. The only other one was in a semi-final.
But this time they were on the same side of the net. For the last six weeks, Murray has been signed up as part of Team Djokovic, and while it did not end in the Serb’s 11th Australian Open title and 25th grand slam, they still felt they achieved much.
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Read MoreAfter beating Carlos Alcaraz, one of the young pretenders to Djokovic’s throne, Melbourne’s greatest ever champion headed to his corner and did not hug his long-time coach Boris Bosnjakovic or either of his physios, but made a beeline for Murray.
They shared an awkward embrace across the advertising hoardings before
“It was a cool moment,” Murray told reporters in Melbourne a few days later.
“I think everyone was pretty pumped after the match, considering how he was feeling, but then like the way that he played. It was unreal tennis. Incredible performance.
“We were all pumped at the side. I was surprised when he came over because we’d celebrated after the match point. But he was obviously just pumped with the win and how he played and that he’d come through.”
Murray and Djokovic are outwardly quite different characters. Djokovic is a new-age thinker who regularly meditates and opines in public about the shifting energies of the universe, and how to manipulate them. Murray is a straight-laced Scot with an achingly dry sense of humour and an air of suspicion that can leave you slightly unnerved.
When Djokovic went to hug him, Murray looked a bit like he didn’t quite know what to do, like a reserved Presbyterian father nervously accepting the embrace of a new, over-familiar neighbour.
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But these two tennis greats have things in common too. Of course they have years of shared experience, but away from the tennis court, they both love embarrassing their children as much as they enjoy a round of golf, eating well and committing completely to projects, whatever they may be. And that personal connection is what has made Murray a valued member of the team.
“I feel more and more connected with Andy every day,” Djokovic said after beating Alcaraz.
“We face challenges every single day. People don’t see that obviously. We try to make the most out of every day and grow together. He’s been as committed to my career and this tournament as he can be.
“[That hug] was a gesture of appreciation, respect for him, and the fact that he’s out there, and he doesn’t need to be. He accepted to work with me. He’s giving all his support to me, to the whole team, and trying to make it work.”
Djokovic added: “I just felt very grateful that he’s there.”
Murray says he has enjoyed the challenge of figuring out matches (Photo: Reuters)
How effectively Murray has been technically or tactically is hard to know or say. Djokovic was uncharacteristically passive tactically in the early stages of the tournament, although he is a bit of a slow starter who can take a few rounds to play his best tennis.
In the one set against Zverev, he showed plenty of Murray-esque variety, slicing the ball in a very manner against the tall and sometimes wooden German. He came forward plenty too, but that may well have been a product of the desire to shorten points because of the injury that eventually ended the match.
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“There’s certainly areas of coaching that I will need to get better at moving forwards and learn a bit more about, for example, the technical side of the game,” Murray said.
“As a player, I would understand the basics, but not extremely well like some very experienced coaches. Some of the guys that I’ve worked with over the years have been very strong in that area.
“I think the ex-players generally would be quite good with strategy and understanding the psychology having played.
“But there’s lots of other areas to coaching as well that I need to learn about.”
Murray also admitted he was surprised by how much work was involved in the coaching side, perhaps a sign of how much the curtain is drawn in front of a player as they make their own preparations for a match.
But there is no doubt that the nerd in him loves it.
“I’ve enjoyed the analysis. I enjoyed the matches and sitting at the side and trying to understand a bit better what’s going on, and seeing maybe how you could help a bit from the side,” Murray added.
“Preparing for the matches and those things is very interesting to me. I like that side of things.”
What comes next?
Both Murray and Djokovic have been relatively tight-lipped on their future together. This was always sold as a temporary trial for the Australian Open, particularly with Murray newly retired and back home (semi-)permanently for the first time in two decades.
Djokovic will need a few weeks or maybe a month or two to recover from the muscle injury which ended his Melbourne campaign, after which he will presumably make a decision about his coaching arrangements for the Sunshine Swing in the USA, which encompasses hard-court 1000-level tournaments (the biggest outside the grand slams) in Indian Wells and Miami. His next set of assignments will come on the European clay courts, culminating at the French Open.
For Murray, family commitments notwithstanding, the world is his oyster. He never questioned that he would enjoy coaching and working with Djokovic in January has not changed his opinion. If anything, it has piqued his interest in the job and also taught him what he still needs to work on.
All the noises from the two men are that they want to keep working together. Only time will tell if they do.
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