Ivan Lendl cannot come back fast enough as misfiring Andy Murray shows feet of clay

Over and out | Murray exits after his straight-sets defeat to Fabio Fognini in Rome
Gareth Copley/Getty Images
Paul Newman17 May 2017

Ivan Lendl, who has helped to turn Andy Murray’s fortunes around on two previous occasions, faces another major task when they link up again on Sunday.

Lendl, who is based in the United States and has not worked with Murray at a tournament for nearly four months, is due to rejoin the world No1 just seven days before the start of the French Open — and his challenge is to arrest his charge’s alarming loss of form.

At this time last year, Murray was enjoying the best clay-court season of his life, but his current woes deepened last night when he was crushed 6-2, 6-4 by Fabio Fognini in the second round of the Rome Masters. That defeat followed losses to Albert Ramos- Vinolas in the third round in Monte Carlo, Dominic Thiem in the semi-finals in Barcelona and Borna Coric in the third round in Madrid.

“I’m just not playing well,” Murray said last night. “The last couple of weeks have been tough and I haven’t played well. I’m just not playing good tennis and I need to try and work out how to turn that around.”

Considering Murray’s form, Fognini was one of the last players he would have wanted to meet in his opening match in Rome. On his day, the Italian is one of the game’s best clay-court players and he relished the opportunity to light up his home crowd.

Fognini played some wonderful attacking shots, though Murray contributed to his own downfall. The Scot made too many mistakes and all too often failed to push his opponent. Taking advantage of a succession of balls which were hit short and failed to push him out wide, Fognini struck some spectacular winners.

Murray can play drop shots better than anyone, but on this occasion it was Fognini who kept outfoxing the Scot. Murray, one of the quickest players on the circuit, normally attempts to chase down almost every ball, but there were several occasions when he did not even try to retrieve drop shots; an indication, perhaps, of his lack of confidence.

Clay-court tennis, where it is so much harder to hit winners because of the slowness of the surface, demands consistency and patience, but Murray is simply not striking enough telling shots to create the openings needed to win more points.

“There were a lot of things I could have done better,” Murray said. “He was taking the ball early, hitting the ball close to the lines and dominating most of the points.”

Although Murray and Lendl have not been working together in person, they have been in regular contact.

Lendl helped to turn Murray into a Grand Slam champion in 2012 in his first spell as coach and oversaw a remarkable run when they were reunited a year ago. Murray won nine of his last 12 tournaments in 2016 en route to becoming the world No1, although his form had already picked up before Lendl’s return.

While Murray’s position at the top of the world rankings is not under threat at the moment, his lead will be cut again next week. Last year, he was runner-up in Madrid, champion in Rome and went on to reach the final at Roland-Garros.

The Scot will be hoping that the format of a Grand Slam tournament, where the seedings mean he is guaranteed to face lesser players in at least the first two rounds, will give him a chance to play himself into some sort of form.

At this stage, it is hard to see him rediscovering his Paris form of 12 months ago. His biggest consolation might be that the grass-court season is now less than four weeks away.

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