Andy Murray will coach at Wimbledon for the first time this summer when he links up with British No 2 Jack Draper.
Murray has long been an informal mentor to Draper, 24, having played as a Davis Cup team-mate to the left-hander and a regular confidant on and off the court.
However, Murray’s only coaching experience came at last year’s Australian Open when he worked with former rival Novak Djokovic, helping to guide him to the semi-finals.
The 38-year-old said he “learned a lot about what coaching is” during a six-month stint working with the Serb, but has not taken up any other roles in the year since splitting with Djokovic – until now.
Draper is currently recovering from a knee injury that has already ruled him out of the French Open at Roland Garros later this month, and had previously been working with Murray’s own former coach Jamie Delgado.
“I am very grateful for everything Jamie Delgado has done for me over these past six months. He is a world class coach and a great man,” Draper said.
“In the interim, I will continue to be supported by the excellent team at the LTA, with the addition of Andy Murray, who will be supporting me throughout the grass court season.”
The pair could make their first appearance together at the Stuttgart Open, which starts on 8 June, but if that comes too soon for Draper’s knee then they will target Queen’s on 15 June, a tournament Murray won a record five times, before Wimbledon starts two weeks later.
‘Right to the top’
Murray has long been one of Draper’s most public supporters, often hitting with the junior Wimbledon finalist when he was still ranked well outside the top 100.
In typically self-effacing, Murray insisted he had “very little impact” on Draper’s career when he first became British No 1 in 2024, but nevertheless backed his Davis Cup team-mate to go “right up to the top of the game”.
So far, he has been proven mostly right, with Draper reaching a career-high No 4 in the world last summer on the back of a semi-final run at the US Open and a first-ever Masters title in Indian Wells.
But his progress ever since has been blighted by injury, a common theme of a professional career in which he has already retired injury from 17 different matches: in the 10 months since Wimbledon last year, he has played just 11 matches.
A bone bruise in his left arm kept him out for most of the 2025 summer, before he briefly returned at the US Open only to aggravate the problem in a first-round win. Draper did then make a return on Davis Cup duty in February, but then he break down again in Barcelona last month with a knee tendon issue that forced him to withdraw from Roland Garros.
An opportunity Draper could not turn down
In a sport where coaches are often seen as only ever temporary, Draper has had a relatively stable set-up, working with Justin Sherring as a youngster before a four-year stint with another Brit, James Trotman.
But they split last year with Trotman taking a job at the LTA and Delgado, who himself coached Murray during the former world No 1’s playing career, took over in the autumn. But he has barely overseen a match played in anger because of injury problems, making his departure at this juncture something of a surprise.
There are a few players however that would not jump at the chance to have Murray, a self-confessed tennis nerd and one of the sport’s great tacticians as a player, in their box, especially on the grass courts where he was so hard to beat.
