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Golding prepares for life in fast lane

Paul Newman
Saturday 13 October 2012 21:25 BST
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Andy Murray is taking Oliver Golding, last year's US Open junior champion, to his Miami "boot camp" during the close season. Golding, one of Britain's brightest prospects, will accompany Murray for the first 10 days of his stay in Florida, when the Scot will be working on his physical preparation and then honing his game with his coach, Ivan Lendl.

Golding is one of Britain's brightest young talents. He has been playing mostly on the Futures circuit – one level below the Challenger tour – and has climbed nearly 200 places in the world rankings since the end of last year to reach his present position at No 456. He has a big game, although his temperament has sometimes been called into question.

The 19-year-old from Richmond is sure to be worked hard in Miami, where Murray always pushes himself to the limits. "Oli practised a lot with me during Wimbledon," Murray said. "He came in to warm me up for all of my matches during Wimbledon. I spoke to Ivan a bit about it. He's a good player, as well. So it was good to hopefully help him out and have someone young and enthusiastic come along and train."

Murray, who will be joined by his fellow Scot Jamie Baker for the latter stages of the training camp, has also practised with other British youngsters at the National Tennis Centre at Roehampton. "I am there if any of them want to call me, want to chat about things," Murray said.

The world No 3 recalled how helpful Tim Henman had been when he was finding his own feet at senior level: "He was very open when I first got on the tour. He took me out for dinner, he helped me out a lot once I'd managed to get on the tour. He practised a lot with me, too, which helped.

"Sometimes when we practised he would sit down and say to me: 'You need to make sure you work on all sorts of things. Don't just practise the things that you're good at. And you also need to trust your game.' Because when I was younger there were a lot of times when I was overly critical of myself in practice."

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