Murray’s former coach says winning Wimbledon’s just the start
Andy Murray’s Jewish former coach Brad Gilbert believes the Scot can go on and claim more Grand Slam titles – after he became the first British man to win a Wimbledon men’s title for 77 years.
Gilbert coached Murray for 16 months between July 2006 and November 2007, and having seen Murray claim his second Grand Slam title, wrote in his Mail online column: “Andy showed a lot of class and a lot of fight on Sunday. His dismantling of Novak Djokovic was a thing of beauty to watch.
“So what now? Andy has two Grand Slams on the board. So many players got to one and stuck there. So he will now be viewed differently to all of them. His goal now is to get to No 1 in the world and win more Grand Slams.
“You don’t put a number on anything, you just have to get greedy and get more. The pressure is off now. Very little of that 77 years of Britain waiting for a men’s winner bothered him, but it’s still a relief.
“But Murray and Djokovic are a young 26 — we’re going to be seeing a lot more finals contested by these two.”
However, while Murray finally won the title at his eighth attempt, back in 2005 he teamed up with Israeli Shahar Peer inthe mixed doubles. In what their one – and only – match together which ended in a defeat, Peer said of the game: “It was the first time I playing mixed, but it was a nice match.”
Peer instigated that partnership when she emailed him during the French Open that year, saying: “I just asked him if he wanted to play the mixed, he answered yes so we signed up.”
And while the match itself won’t live long in the memory, Murray, for whom it was also his first mixed doubles match, said: “She actually played much better than me, I was rubbish. The first set, I never played mixed before, so I didn’t know what to do. I was scared about hitting it to the girl. Then the second set, I played a bit better.”
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