Time flies.
It really doesn’t feel that long ago that I was writing about Andy Murray hiring Ivan Lendl as his coach.
I was optimistic that the partnership would help Murray over the line in the Grand Slams, but it was a gamble given Lendl’s lack of coaching experience.
Not many people would have predicted it would prove to be as successful as it was. Put it this way, I bet they would probably both have been delighted with one Grand Slam in that time, so to get two (and one of them being Wimbledon) as well as an Olympic gold would have been more than they dared dream of.
So, in an ideal world, Murray would have been happy with Lendl for the rest of his career and Lendl would have been happy with Murray. But that clearly hasn’t been the case.
If, as is being reported, Lendl wasn’t able to commit as much time to the job as Murray needed, he was absolutely right to call a halt.
There are parallels with our own coach Dave Hay. He has a lot of work commitments on his farm but we sit down at the start of the season and plan our schedule, and when he’ll be able to travel with us. We’re also able to call on national coach Rhona Martin as well.
We’ve managed to make it work for us, and I’m hoping when we sit down in the summer with Dave we’ll be able to keep making it work for us again.
That hasn’t been the case with Murray and Lendl though.
The biggest worry I would have for Murray wouldn’t be getting another top quality coach. There may be someone who is perfect for this stage of his career.
My worry would be the timing of it.
When it gets to mid-season I want stability, and I would imagine that’s the same with most sports people.
If a change is to be made, or at least a big one like a new coach, it should be made between seasons if at all possible. For us that means the summer, and for tennis players that would mean December.
Murray is already struggling with his form a bit and is slipping down the rankings, so if he wants to have a strong middle and back-end of the season (and have a good chance of defending Wimbledon) he needs to appoint his new coach soon.
* It was great to see the wheelchair curlers complete the set for our Sochi GB curling teams by bringing home a bronze.
I did a bit of work for Channel 4 on Saturday for their medal play-off and I could totally appreciate the emotions the guys would have been feeling.
Unfortunately there won’t be a World Championship medal coming back to Scotland from Canada.
As you all probably know by now, the Scottish Championships were scheduled during the Olympics so we weren’t given the chance to defend our title.
In one way we put it behind us a while ago, but I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t been a hard one to stomach this week. I certainly haven’t been trying to find it on the internet to watch it!
It’s been really nice to get lots of messages and Tweets from people saying we should have been there, and I’m told that the papers over there have had their say on the subject.
I’ve played with all the girls in the Scottish team at some point. I haven’t seen their matches so it’s not for me to speak about, but I can imagine they’ll be gutted to have only won a couple of games.
I would expect Rachel Homan from Canada to win, but we’ll be determined to get back to the Worlds next year, and technically, we’ll still be defending our crown!
* The weird and wonderful post-Olympics roadshow rolls on!
This week we’ve been down to Radio One as part of Sport Relief, and we’re flying back down to London today to appear live on the TV for Sport Relief again.
Our management team will probably be relieved we’re flying out to Canada on Tuesday so they can get a break from our diary!