The currently 51 yrs old Lendl had become the World no.1 but had failed in 4 Slam finals until Roche helped him solve the riddle and guided him to one slam after the other. Murray has now appeared in 3 Slam finals with no luck. The ruling troika is just not letting him any breathing space in the business end of Slams.

Another bizarre similarity is that Lendl won his first Slam at the French Open with an epic win over Jon McEnroe, at the age of 24, the same as what Murray is now. He then went on to win two more French Open titles and a hat-trick of US Opens before he conquered Melbourne twice, although victory on grass at Wimbledon evaded him.

Lendl has been away from the game for about 15 yrs now but he is back and that is good news for the game given the former great’s reputation for professionalism, single-minded focus and hard work.

This is what Lendl had to say on his association with Murray.

“To me this is like Groundhog Day, I have been in this movie, I was that player once, who needed something to help make it work, it was the same as I was before I hired Rochey. What happened then changed my career around. What excites me about this partnership? More than anything, it is simply that this is absolutely the best match-up. Our senses of humor are very similar and we have an understanding that we need to bring our best all the time if we want to achieve. I didn’t get everything I wanted from tennis, not everyone does, but it is about not wasting chances. It does not mean that it will work as we want it, but I believe it will.”

Murray has had problems with his coaches in the past and is known to be quite strong headed and stubborn. The past year was his best year at the Slams. He reached at least the semifinal in all the Slams with a final appearance at Melbourne against Djokovic. He lost to Rafa at the semifinal stage in Paris, London and New York.

Will this combo work out? That’s one of the major questions ahead of the Aussie Open that kicks off on Jan 16. Meanwhile Murray kickstarts his season at the Brisbane International this week.

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