Draper persuading Murray to help him feels like a natural coming together between the master and apprentice of British men’s tennis.<\/p>\n
The bond between the pair has always been strong, with Draper often referring to Murray as a “big brother” figure and Murray always available on the phone if Draper has needed career advice. <\/p>\n
The strength of their personal relationship was also famously illustrated by the video of a beer-swigging Draper singing on their way home together from a Davis Cup win in 2023. <\/p>\n
Murray, ever the contrarian, played up to the role of an exasperated older sibling and the pair became a viral hit.<\/p>\n
It demonstrated a natural friendship which meant linking up together in a player-coach relationship always felt inevitable – although the timing now is a surprise.<\/p>\n
Draper already had a vastly experienced coach in Delgado, who is best known for his work with Murray but has a strong CV which also includes guiding former world number three Grigor Dimitrov to two Grand Slam quarter-finals.<\/p>\n
While their time on court together was limited, Delgado had already implemented a change to Draper’s serving motion and would clearly provide a wealth of valuable knowledge on the British grass, having been part of Murray’s team when he won his second Wimbledon title in 2016.<\/p>\n
For Murray’s part, it seemed he was finally content to take some extended time away from the sport which he has dedicated his life to.<\/p>\n
The partnership with Djokovic was a steep learning curve and one which he found valuable. <\/p>\n
But only last month Murray spoke about not wanting to return to coaching yet. Spending more time with his family was a priority, as was improving his golf game. <\/p>\n
Now he feels the opportunity to help Draper – especially without the commitment of travelling far from his Surrey home – is too good to turn down.<\/p>\n
Nobody knows more than Murray about the expectations and stress which are planted on a British player at Wimbledon. <\/p>\n
He also knows what it is like to battle physical issues as a younger player and become robust enough to stay on court for a sustained period – the first task for a partnership which has the capacity to thrill British sports fans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Draper persuading Murray to help him feels like a natural coming together between the master and apprentice of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-445338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}