British tennis player Andy Murray sacks Miles Maclagan as his coach
The British number one and world number four professional tennis player, Andy Murray, recently parted ways with his coach, Miles Maclagan. Maclagan is a British tennis coach and was a former professional tennis player. He agreed to start coaching his fellow Scot, Murray, in 2007 and by the end of the year he became a part of Murray’s coaching team.
When Murray hired Maclagan to help him with his tennis game, he was ranked 11th in the world. He started training with the British coach after sacking his former American coach, Brad Gilbert. Both of them hit it off well together and there has been a notable improvement in Murray’s performance since then.
Maclagan managed to get Murray into the top ten players in the world and while working with Maclagan the British player advanced to two Grand Slam finals at the 2008 US Open and the 2010 Australian Open. On both these occasions he lost to the Swiss player, Roger Federer. These performances led to Murray being ranked as high as world number two which is the highest he has gotten in his career till now.
The twenty-three year old Scottish player has yet to win a Grand Slam title and is taking desperate measures to ensure that he is undergoing proper training and practice to prepare himself for the next Gran Slam that is the US Open.
Although Murray was seen to be progressing further in his game with the coaching efforts of Maclagan, he invited over the Spanish coach, Alex Corretja, to join his team as an advisor in May 2008. Murray did this in order to broaden his guidance for the game as Corretja had been helping him out and giving him excellent tips on how to handle his game on the clay courts.
Recently, it has been reported that the three men – Murray, Maclagan and Corretja have been having difficulties working and cooperating with each other. Murray had started spending at least three months during the year with Corretja which made Maclagan feel that his coaching abilities were being put under question by bringing in another coach. For this reason Murray let Maclagan go.
Both the teacher and student have parted on good terms. They are happy to have worked together and wish each other good luck for the future.
Furthermore, Maclagan stated that it has been an honour working with a player like Andy and that he was glad that he was able to play a part in his career. The former Scottish coach also admitted that he will miss working with Murray on an everyday basis and that he believes that Murray is indeed an extremely talented player who will very soon fill the gap in his career by winning a Grand Slam title.
Murray has also thanked Miles for all the hard work and effort he has put into Murray’s game. If it had not been for Maclagan the world number four may not have made it to this position in his career. Their partnership lasted for almost three years and they accomplished a lot together during this time.
Currently Andy Murray is participating in the Farmers Classic, which is his first professional tournament since Wimbledon this year where he had been eliminated in the semi-finals. He is the top seed in this tournament and expects to win this ATP Tour title in California, America.
For now, the twenty-three year old Brit will be training with Corretja, who before the flight of Maclagan, was part-time on Murray’s team but has now taken up the job of working with Murray full-time, at least till his run-up to the US Open.
Apart from the elimination of Miles Maclagan from his support team, Murray has kept the rest of the team unchanged. The team includes his strength and conditioning coach, Jez Green, organizing incharge, Matt Little, and physiotherapist, Andy Ireland.
After getting done at the Farmers Classic, Murray is planning to play at the Rogers Cup in Canada and at the Cincinatti Masters before flying to New York to participate in the US Open, which is scheduled to start on the 30th of August.
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