Alan's Blog

25 May, 2009 | 08:05

Hello Jamie Murray fans! (And hello to anyone who’s accidentally found themselves here while surfing the net – please stick around and enjoy the site).

This is my first blog for the website; the idea is that I’ll try to give you an insight into the everyday goings on/escapades/fortunes and misfortunes which Jamie and I go through each week. Hopefully there’ll be some decent stories, characters and banter along the way – and possibly even the odd coaching tip relating to what Jamie’s been working on in practice and matches.

I’ve been working with Jamie full-time since the start of 2009 (having previously travelled with him on and off since 2005). My job is to coach and hit with Jamie, to help him to maintain all the improvements he’s made in his game since he started working with Louis Cayer in 2006 and hopefully to help him get even better. So far this year, we’ve not been able to consistently get his best tennis onto the match court, but Jamie’s had six partners by my count (I may have missed one or two), so it’s been hard for him to build up much momentum or continuity. Having said that, they’ve all been good guys and Jamie’s played some decent matches with all of them, but hasn’t been able to put a run of 3 or 4 wins in a row together. At least not yet...

As I’m sure you know, the French Open starts at Roland Garros on Sunday 24^th May (I’m actually writing this while on the Eurostar to Paris). We’ve been practising at Roehampton all week in preparation and thankfully have been able to use the clay courts most of the time, give or take a few showers. Practice has gone pretty well and Jamie’s also had the chance to get in the gym with Joey and put in some good physical work. It can be tough to keep a gym program going regularly when you’re travelling to tournaments where there might not be great facilities and you have to fit the physical program in around matches. Joey’s given Jamie some exercises to improve his core strength, legs, back and shoulders. I can tell you that he particularly enjoyed the core exercises Joey had him doing yesterday!

On the practice court, Jamie’s been working a lot this year on improving some areas in which he feels he isn’t as strong as some of the other top players on tour, for example his second shot after the return of serve. While this has paid off in that he has made improvements, it was good to have Paul Annacone on court with us regularly this week to reinforce that the most important thing as a tennis player is to maximise your strengths and to give yourself as many chances as you can in each match to do what you’re best at and enjoy doing. In Jamie’s case that means using his athleticism and volleying skills close to the net, which he is as good at as anyone in the world. He’s been practising a lot of close-up volleying and getting involved as the server’s and receiver’s partner, as well as keeping his own serve in good nick.

Diesel has been around quite a bit too, and he gave Jamie a great tip for his backhand volley to allow him to get more stick on it (you don’t know how close I was to taking the credit myself there...). He’s also been hitting some balls with us, but he’s not available too often as he seems to be planning to train as a groundsman to bolster his already impressive CV; I’ve never seen anyone so content as Diesel sitting on the court-rolling tractor, chugging around in circles... On Thursday Jamie practised with Wes Moodie and Kevin Ullyett, which was really useful because it gave him the chance to put what he’d been doing in training into some game situations with two world-class players. And me. It’s always fun when I get permission to join in with the practice sessions, and since there were just three of them I could help out by feeding some balls or playing as server’s partner (where I could do least damage). I also hit a couple of scorching late backhand winners which, contrary to what certain unnamed people might have you believe, were deliberate. But the biggest tennis story of the week was undoubtedly the appearance of website supremo Rob Stewart on the court, and I can exclusively reveal that he has a very respectable forehand which had Jamie scampering to all corners. Let’s not mention the backhand though.

At this point I feel obliged to report that Jamie’s been excelling himself in the kitchen this week. He’s got the cooking of steaks down to a fine art and has even started to introduce such interesting ingredients as lime juice and vine tomatoes. Diesel came round for dinner on Tuesday and Jamie premiered his new culinary creation: Entrecote au Poisson, or, for non-linguists (admittedly I was bluffing with that bit of French), steak garnished with fish! I’m not sure what inspired him to cook a steak and then whack half a trout on top of it, but it certainly tasted good. Food visionary or dangerous lunatic? You decide.

So we’re just entering the Chunnel and I think it’s time for me to sign off. Here’s hoping for a great run at Roland Garros for Jamie and his partner Pavel Vizner. I’m sure Jamie’ll keep you updated via his own blog and I’ll hopefully be writing again in a little bit with more news, chat and bizarre experimental recipes from Team Murray (if Rob lets me after this debut effort). Until then, all the best.

Alan