Andy Murray hits ground running thanks to reduced staff and shrink

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/jan/09/andy-murray-reduced-staff-australian-open

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A pared down backroom staff, speed work and a psychologist have helped Andy Murray begin the new season with renewed conviction.

In Perth to play in the Hopman Cup and prepare for the Australian Open which starts in Melbourne on 19 January, Murray has shown how a disappointing 2014 – largely owing to the after-effects of back surgery – might turn out to be a blip.

He won both his matches at an exhibition event in Abu Dhabi, against Feliciano López and Rafael Nadal, and all three in the Hopman Cup, against Benoît Paire, Jerzy Janowicz and Marinko Matosevic.

The entourage Murray used to travel with numbered in the high teens but in Perth Team Murray is down to three and the Australian Open will be the first grand slam championship for a long time in which Dani Vallverdu, his friend from their days at tennis academy in Barcelona, will not be in attendance.

Vallverdu, Murray’s hitting partner, and Jez Green, one of his trainers, left the 2013 Wimbledon champion’s employ in November. The parting was said to have been amicable but it appears the reason may have been that not everyone was on the same page and Vallverdu and Green were unhappy at not being consulted before Amélie Mauresmo came on board to replace Ivan Lendl as head coach in June last year.

Murray told the Independent: “The most important point in any team is that everyone has the same vision, everyone wants to move forward together. I feel that’s what I have now. Maybe the last four or five months of last year it wasn’t like that. It’s not as much fun travelling when that’s the case. If everyone isn’t right into it, that isn’t how you want to work.”

His pace around the court has been improved by a new regime at his winter training camp in Florida under the supervision of Matt Little. It included speed work Murray had neglected for a long time and involved training on the beach. The result has been that instead of feeling sore on resuming competitive tennis, he “woke up the next day feeling good”.

Murray’s use of a sports psychologist represents a considerable shift in attitude, having once said counting to 10 does not help in a Wimbledon semi-final on Centre Court. He has been working for several months with someone he does not wish to identify and believes it has been a benefit.

“I think when it comes to psychology it has to be something that the player wants and the player buys into. When it’s someone else’s suggestion in the past I haven’t felt like it’s worked. But just now I think it’s working well.”

The tie-up with Mauresmo is going from strength to strength. “We’ve been working together now for five or six months. We know each other better, have a better understanding of the things we need to work on in my game. It has worked well,” Murray said.