Janko Tipsarevic is calling nonsense on claims that Novak Djokovic hired Andy Murray only to make the headlines as the former Serbian tennis star even believes that the record 24-time Grand Slam champion made an outstanding choice in adding the Briton to his team.
For weeks, the Serb’s critics and doubters had been pushing the narrative that he hired one of his biggest tennis rivals only to draw some attention to himself after Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz dominated the 2024 season.
But in their very first tournament together as a player/coach duo, they made some noise after Murray’s tactics helped Djokovic beat Alcaraz in the Australian Open quarterfinal.
While the 37-year-old was forced to retire in his next match against Alexander Zverev due to a hamstring tear, there was no doubt that his new coaching experiment went pretty well.
Tipsarevic: There are bad coaches but Andy Murray isn’t one of them
“When I talk about glorified towel boys and people who are on tour just to pick up balls, 100% Andy does not fall into that category,” the former world No. 8 said on The Tennis Podcast.
“This has nothing to do with him being the ex-world No 1, there are a lot of ex-top players who are s— coaches.
“My description of Andy as a coach has nothing to do with his prior successes as a tennis player, by his character, you can clearly see that he loves the sport.”
Some also argued that Djokovic should have picked someone with a prior coaching experience or even a tennis great like Pete Sampras.
Addressing that, Tipsarevic declared the Murray addition as “the possible hire that the Serb could have made.”
“There is nobody better on tour for Novak as a full package, that he knows personally, that he respects, that he knows will give 100% into the job like he is giving in this moment of his career than Murray,” the former Serbian tennis star added.
Meanwhile, the British tennis legend is accompanying Djokovic in Indian Wells and Miami.
Tennis World USA