In June 1990, just minutes after his shocking first-round loss to specialist Derrick Rostagno at Wimbledon, a suddenly aged and forlorn John McEnroe sat down with NBC’s Bud Collins, along with rival Jimmy Connors, for an interview. Connors was working for NBC that summer as an analyst while recovering from a wrist injury.
It was a rare moment of insightful, subdued reflection from the usually fiery McEnroe. The loquacious New Yorker spoke of his disappointment with himself and his level of play and how difficult it had become to balance family life and a career in professional tennis. Connors noted that his fellow Irish-American seemed to lack direction and needed advice on how to proceed.
And then something extraordinary happened: Connors offered to be the one to guide McEnroe back to glory by suggesting that he himself take on the role of McEnroe’s coach. McEnroe literally extended his hand to seal the deal and for a brief moment the impossible was about to happen: two fierce (and often hated) on-court rivals were about to come together and give their tennis generation one last shot at glory. before being rude. –and definitively– expelled from the party.
But alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Those few minutes were as far as the coach’s proposal went. Years later, Connors would comment that shortly after the interview both he and McEnroe decided to “go in the opposite direction.”
I couldn’t help but think that could have been the moment when it was surprisingly announced last week that Andy Murray would be teaming up with Novak Djokovic, as the Serbian’s coach to begin the 2025 campaign. The brilliant Djokovic will be seeking his 11th Open title of Australia in January and, probably an even bigger motivation, her 25th major title overall, which would allow Djokovic to overtake Margaret Court docket as the all-time winning slam champion. the times, man or woman.
In a way, Murray’s training of his old friend and rival makes sense since the two have been close for decades. Consider: Roger Federer is six years older than Murray and Djokovic and started out in a completely different generation of tennis. Rafael Nadal had unprecedented early success that separated himself from his slightly younger rivals early on and solidified his partnership with Federer as early as 2004. But Murray and Djokovic have a history dating back to when they competed frequently in their youthful days. . And they were also born days apart in May 1987.
Furthermore, although Murray is a three-time Slam champion (impressively beating Djokovic twice in Grand Slam finals) and a sure Hall of Famer, his relationship with Djokovic, unlike McEnroe and Connors’ contentious interactions, never It was cooperative. It’s the same; Djokovic, Federer and Nadal are obviously in their own world and the notion that the “Big Four” ever existed, as coined from the beginning, was false, as well as being an unfair burden on Murray. There were the Big Three with an occasional companion (that “one” was Murray or Wawrinka).
Given that he was a great player in his own right, it will be interesting to see what Murray can do to help Djokovic get that last Slam before retiring as perhaps the greatest player of all time (if judged solely by the flawed metric of titles of Slam). Murray may be able to provide that little psychological edge or confidence boost that Djokovic needs, something that perhaps only another former top player can provide. Djokovic already tried it before, when Boris Becker helped his technical team for several years with great success.
Perhaps Murray can channel the positive effects his former coach Ivan Lendl had. Lendl is a very rare breed: someone who was an all-time great player on the court and who also achieved great success as a head coach, guiding Murray to his three major triumphs. But Lendl is, indeed, the exception that proves the rule.
The sports world is full of great players who were unable to transfer their successes from the playing field to the coach’s box. Let’s think about Ted Williams. Williams, arguably the greatest hitter who ever lived, was also a passionate teacher and fulfilled a personal dream when he became manager of the less-than-mediocre Washington Senators in 1969, winning Manager of the Year in his first year. But the perfectionist Williams soon discovered how difficult it was to instill his supernatural baseball skills in mediocre talents. During his four years at the helm in Washington (and Texas, where the Senators were and were moved and renamed the Rangers), Williams finished with a win-loss percentage of .429, lower than his career base percentage as a player. 482.
Wayne Gretzky, Isaiah Thomas, Bart Starr, Mike Singletary, Magic Johnson and many other all-time greats tried their hand at coaching and none came even remotely close to replicating their triumphs as players. Obviously, some are lucky and you have to accept the players that are inherited on a team, but the vast majority of the most successful coaches were not great players.
If you think about the best coaches in all of sports in recent decades, none of them were stars on the field: Andy Reid and Invoice Belichick in the NFL, Bruce Bochy and Dave Roberts in baseball, Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr in NBA, and so on.
But why is this? Why is it so difficult for those who honed their craft in competition to pass on their gifts to their eager students? Malcolm Gladwell, the standard writer for The Tipping Level, who specializes in research at the intersection of the social sciences, had a theory. While speaking to ESPN promoting his 2005 book Blink: The Energy of Considering With out Considering, which focused on the effectiveness of instinctive versus well-thought-out actions, Gladwell mentioned an anecdote in which legendary tennis coach Vic Braden said : “We have not found a single top-level tennis player who is consistent in knowing and explaining exactly what he does.”
Gladwell had an explanation: “This is precisely why the best athletes are often bad coaches or general managers. They often don’t really know why they were so good. They can’t describe it, which means they can’t teach it, and they quickly become frustrated by their inability to lift others to their own level. Mediocre players – or non-athletes – tend to be better coaches because their knowledge is not unconscious. The same goes for writing. I know very little about science. But I think I write about science more clearly than many scientists, because I have to go over each step, carefully and deliberately.”
There’s kind of a middle ground, what I would call the B-plus category of very good players – but not really great ones – who also became stellar coaches. The most obvious example of this is Joe Torre. Although the back page of the Every day Information tabloid’s headline infamously read “Clueless Joe” when the Yankees hired Torre in November 1995, he became a four-time World Series champion with the Yankees and is in the Hall of Fame thanks to to it. .
As far as the coaching of the aforementioned Big Three goes, none of them ever had a great player as a coach for long: Federer never had a long-term coach, but he had Paul Annacone and Tony Roche by his side for long periods . both were solid professionals but neither were dominant singles players; Djokovic’s longest-serving coach who was with him throughout his career until recently was Marian Vajda, a former professional who never advanced beyond the third round at a Slam as a player; and of course Nadal had uncle Toni, who never played professional tennis.
The Murray-Djokovic partnership would seem, at first glance, to be a superb setup. Obviously there is no stress from long-term commitment since Djokovic is at the end of his career. The two clearly have the utmost sincere affection and respect for each other. And although the ten-time Australian Open champion is now outmatched by the brute force of Jannik Sinner’s groundstrokes and the dazzling range of Carlos Alcaraz, Murray can serve as an invaluable source to counter younger players. Murray, a master of defense and counterattacking, has also competed against Sinner and Alcaraz. And having faced Djokovic so many times over the last quarter century, he knows the few areas in which his new student is most susceptible.
Whatever happens in Australia and the rest of 2025, Murray taking on this role is a unique and somewhat joyous coda to this golden era of the sport. And the extra burst of enthusiasm and energy that this partnership will undoubtedly provide may well make that small percentage of difference as Djokovic strives for that final shot.
And for their part, both Connors and McEnroe ended up trying their luck as coaches. Connors had some success with Andy Roddick during their two years together, and Roddick reached the final of the US Open in 2006 with Connors in his box. And McEnroe worked briefly with Milos Raonic during the 2016 grass season, helping the tall Canadian reach the finals at Wimbledon, where he lost… to Murray.
