In her latest Sky Sports column, Laura Robson reacts to Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic extending their coaching partnership, looks ahead to the ‘sunshine double’ of Indian Wells and the Miami Open, and gives an insight into a busy few weeks in her role as tournament director for the return of women’s tennis to Queen’s…
Andy Murray continuing with Novak Djokovic is really positive news. Andy has four young kids and probably doesn’t want to do all of these weeks on the road now that he’s just stopped playing, so I’m sure that after the Australian Open, it just took them a minute to figure out their schedules.
I think it was a case of picking and choosing which tournaments they partner up at, and it sounds like he’s going to be at Indian Wells and Miami coming up in March.
- Latest tennis scores, results and schedule 📋
- Where will Jack Draper play next? Latest schedule 🔍
- Not got Sky? Get Sky Sports or stream with NOW 📺📱
It should be really interesting to see how their partnership evolves, because it seemed like they were just getting to know each other and trust each other with the game plan and tactics. I think you need to build that communication with any coach that you start with, and it takes a bit of time, so the fact that they’ve given themselves another few months makes a lot of sense.
The ‘sunshine double’ of Indian Wells and Miami is very, very tough for any player to pull off, because it’s totally opposite conditions – even though it’s two hard-court tournaments. It’s a really long stint – both events are 12 days – and it’s just a massive change conditions-wise, to go from one to the other as Miami is so hot and humid, compared to being in the desert of Palm Springs.
Indian Wells, in particular, I always struggled at, because it’s much slower than you think. It doesn’t always favour the Brits, who in general, prefer slightly faster conditions and a pacier hard court that plays more lively, because you get a bit more out of your shots.
Katie Boulter is coming off a foot injury, so she’s hoping to be match fit again for it, while Emma Raducanu has been out in the Middle East trying to build on the form we saw from her in Australia. She is competing really well and making sure she’s trying to do the right things on the court.
