Andy Murray:I just need to get that winning mentality back."

[uliks]

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/aug/19/andy-murray-us-open

I feel good,” he says as we chat on the players’ balcony in Mason. “I feel well, I have practised well. I just need to get that winning mentality back. Last week [losing to Tsonga] I messed the match up a bit.” As Murray sees it: “Guys can come back. That can always happen. When you’re playing against a guy as good as Tsonga, he can always come back. He’s a streaky player as well.”

That “as well” sounded as if Murray was including himself in that category. “But from that position, you don’t want to be losing four games in a row,” he adds. “It’s OK to lose one or two, but not four. That’s something I’ll have to keep an eye on.”

However, in the press conference after losing to Federer – when the virus struck again – Murray was decidedly more downbeat. “It was pretty poor,” he had to admit.

This was becoming a habit, a worrying one. Earlier in his career, Murray suffered from mood and form swings but that inconsistency looked to have been conquered in the two years he was with Lendl. Could the blow of losing his inspiring coach be hurting still – and could Lendl’s successor, Amélie Mauresmo, repair the damage?

At the mention of the Frenchwoman’s name, Murray’s face lights up again and he remains aware that the novelty of the arrangement has not quite faded. “There’s a very big difference in personality, that’s for sure,” he says. “In the work we do before, she’s very demanding. When we’re on the court, she’s very precise. With Ivan, he liked volume, in terms of time spent on the practice court.

“But when I was in Miami with Amélie just now, it was about making sure that the work I was doing was quality. I was still spending a good time on the court but what is important is to be able to play with the intensity that you need to be able to play in matches. It’s not worth being on the court for three and a half, four hours if you’re going at 70 to 80% because when you arrive at the match you need to be intense from the first point to the last. So that’s one of the differences.”

Murray occasionally hits with Mauresmo – and that scenario is rare on the circuit. Most men like to be pushed hard in training or warm-ups against a physical hitting partner. But Murray likes to work on the subtleties as well: “She warmed me up for my matches [in Canada]. I hit with her once in Miami, once at Wimbledon. Obviously if that was my only way of preparing, it wouldn’t be the best. But if I need to do some drills and she’s in one corner, she’s got pretty good control of the ball.”

He revealed that the perceived agonising over the extension of their agreement was not accurate. And the supposed rift in the camp – when his long-time friend and training partner, Dani Vallverdu, was briefly miffed at not being consulted – soon healed. They are a happy team.

“We decided the day after Wimbledon [to formalise their grasscourt trial],” Murray says. “When I spoke to her before the French Open, I said: ‘This is what I want, this is how much time I’m going to need.’ She was thinking about it, if she wanted to commit that much time or not. There would have been no point in saying: ‘Yeah, let’s commit to 25 weeks,’ and after two weeks we hate it. So we said: ‘Why don’t we see how it goes and then decide after that?’ Then we sat down and had a chat the day after and [agreed] it had worked well with me and the team. And that was it.”

As well as getting on personally, Murray and Mauresmo also discovered they shared the same views on how to play the game – because there are innumerable views on the subject in an era where the new gym-bred physicality has both made and broken several players. The search now is for a new or perhaps already tested method of winning.

“It’s similar in a lot of ways in terms of trying to be aggressive, trying to move forward, get up to the net when you can – which I did well [beating João Sousa and John Isner],” Murray explains. “I won almost all of the points when I came to the net. So that’s something that we’ve been working on in Miami.

“And the other thing is variety. That was something that maybe Ivan wasn’t that big on. He was very big on being aggressive and coming forward to finish points but Amélie played with a lot of variety herself. It worked well for her and when it’s used properly, it can make a big difference. It’s been a big part of my game since I was young. That’s the other thing she’s been into.

“I played like that when I was a kid and I did it as well when I came on to the Tour until I was 21, 22. But when I was starting to play winning tennis, high‑percentage solid tennis, not making many mistakes, moving well, maybe I just got away from using that, I dunno … flair a bit on the court. That’s something I wanted to get back to a little bit and try to use in matches.”

He adds: “But it is also difficult: if you have a lot of shots at your disposal, to make the right decisions all of the time is hard. If you can only play one shot, then you don’t have to think about it. If you’re thinking about playing four or five different shots then you have to make your mind up. If you’re going to play that way, it’s about making the right decisions.”

As for that call on having an operation, Murray says it wasn’t such a big deal, probably because the alternative was the hell of playing in constant pain, or the prospect of it. “I was more nervous when I started playing again and I was feeling my back,” he says.

“That was when you start to think was that actually a waste of time, you know? It was a pretty straightforward operation. There are things that can go wrong in surgery, of course, but there was very, very minor chance of that happening. The procedure I had was always going to work but it takes time for it to settle down. That doesn’t just happen in three, four weeks.

“Rome was the first week when it started to feel properly better. I wasn’t getting any pain in my back. That calmed me down. It was just nice to not be in pain when I hit the ball. That’s when I started to feel good about my game again.”
“When I’m physically fit, I’m mentally stronger as well,” Murray says. “I make way better decisions on the court. As long as I keep working hard, I’m sure the results will be around the corner.”

Nice interview. I have a feeling that Murray will be very hard to beat at this year US Open.