Andy Murray regrets former players don't have time to coach

British No 1 admits retired stars are reluctant to hit the road again

Andy Murray knows former players do not want to be on the road all year (Getty)

Andy Murray set a trend for legends of the game becoming top coaches with his appointment of Ivan Lendl five years ago, but the Scot acknowledges that former players are often reluctant to devote too much time to the role. Murray, who plays his first match here at the Rome Masters on Wednesday, is looking for a new coach after announcing that he has parted company with Amélie Mauresmo because she was unable to commit to more time on the road with him.

Murray pointed out that Stefan Edberg had stopped working with Roger Federer at the end of last year because he wanted to spend more time at home and that Carlos Moya and Michael Chang, who work with Milos Raonic and Kei Nishikori respectively, both limit the number of tournaments they attend.

The world No 3 said it had been important to him to bring Jamie Delgado into his coaching team this year. Delgado has committed to travelling for up to 40 weeks of the year with Murray.

“It isn’t easy to find that, especially if you’re going for the ex-players who have spent 15 or 20 years of their life on the road for 30 or 35 weeks a year,” Murray said here in Rome. “They don’t always want to do it.”

He added: “I do think it’s important to have someone in your team who is willing to commit for that amount of time. To have that consistency throughout the whole of the year is very important. I’m glad I’ve got that now, which I didn’t last year with Jonas [Bjorkman] and Amélie. They were splitting the time. So I’m happy I have that consistency and now I’ll maybe try and find someone to add to that.”

Although Murray had spent only 10 days working with Mauresmo since the end of January, he admitted that the schedule he had agreed with her would have seen them spend a lot of time together between now and the end of Wimbledon.

Had he therefore considered extending the relationship with her at least until the middle of the summer? “We spoke about that last week,” Murray said. “The problem is that the same thing was going to continue happening throughout the year. So after Wimbledon it was going to happen and then after the US Open.”

He added: “You simply need more time than that to make an impact and make a difference, in my opinion - and in Amélie’s opinion as well. We both agreed on that, and that was it. We certainly could have tried through to the end of Wimbledon, but longer term and medium term the same thing was going to continue happening. It just made more sense to stop now.”

Murray rejected any suggestion that the fact he and Mauresmo had parted company had struck a blow against the idea of women coaching men in tennis. “I think it did work,” Murray said. “For two years I think the results that we had were good. Maybe unless I win a Grand Slam, then maybe ultimately that’s how people may judge whether it worked or not, but when she first came into the team, I was really struggling. I was not doing well. My confidence was low and I was going in the wrong direction.

“Then obviously when she came on board, my results really picked up. For me, the time we spent together was positive. It’s just a shame I wasn’t able to win one of the major events, because that’s what both of us wanted.”

Murray pointed out that “no one batted an eyelid” about Edberg ending his relationship with Federer because the Swede did not want to travel as much. “So in my opinion it's nothing to do with Amélie being a woman,” Murray said. “I think it’s the case for a lot of the ex-players that it takes a lot of time to do the job well and properly. It’s not easy to do that for four, five years in a row.”

He said that the end of 2014, following Mauresmo’s appointment earlier in the year, had been a difficult time for both of them. Although he had qualified for the season-ending Barclays ATP World Tour Finals by picking up ranking points at smaller tournaments, his year ended with a crushing defeat by Roger Federer at the O2 Arena.

“There were a lot of questions asked of me at the end of that year after how the O2 finished and also of her,” Murray said, “I don't think many people had any confidence really in that partnership after how that year ended. But when it was decided that we were going to go for it together, I think it gave both of us a lift. I think when I showed the confidence in her, she was really passionate and pumped and really wanted to make it work. It was the same for me when she also stuck by me, as did all those members of my team who are still with me now.

It isn’t easy to find, especially if you’re going for the ex-players who have spent 15 or 20 years on the road for 30 or 35 weeks a year

&#13; <p>Andy Murray</p>&#13;

“It was like: ‘Right, OK, we’re going to show everyone we're a strong team.’ We came back after that and I played what I think was maybe my best Australian Open. I played extremely well there and came back well from how I finished [the previous] year.

“It took a lot of hard work on the court and a lot of chatting and talking about the things I needed to work on, being very open about my weaknesses. Because it was clear at the end of that year after my match with Roger that there were a lot of them. Even though I was winning matches at other levels I wasn’t at that level and was nowhere close to doing it. It took a lot of hard work to get back to a level where I’m competing with the best players again.”

Murray has dropped to No 3 in the world rankings but has a good chance to reclaim the No 2 position this week from Federer, who has 600 ranking points to defend here as last year’s runner-up. Murray is defending only 90 points after withdrawing from the tournament last year before his third-round match because of tiredness. The Scot said he had not worked out exactly what he needed to do this week in order to return to No 2 in time for the French Open, which starts in 12 days’ time. Being seeded No 2 would mean that Murray could not face Novak Djokovic, the world No 1, before the final.

“It’s not essential,” Murray, who plays his opening match here against Mikhail Kukushkin, said when asked about the importance of being No 2. "But it can help a little bit in the Slams. So it would be nice if I could get to No 2 again, but it's not something I’m worrying too much about.”