Why Novak Djokovic Hired Andy Murray

Processing and praising the most unexpected coaching choice of the year.

The most surprising tennis news of the year was dropped on the penultimate day of the long tennis season by Novak Djokovic, who announced in a video posted on his social media that he has enlisted one of his biggest rivals to be his next coach.

Djokovic’s (perhaps grandiose) narration from that video:

“We played each other since we were boys. 25 years of being rivals, of pushing each other beyond our limits. We had some of the most epic battles in our sport. They called us game changers, risk takers, history makers. I thought our story may be over; turns out, it has one final chapter. It's time for one of my toughest opponents to step into my corner: Welcome on board, Coach Andy Murray.”

Djokovic enjoys a stunt, so I admittedly wasn’t 100 percent sure this news was true when a friend who saw the announcement first frantically texted me about it. But sure enough, there was an update from Murray’s PR team in my inbox confirming that “Novak Djokovic has appointed Andy Murray to coach him into and through the Australian Open.”

The press release also provided (dry) quotes about the news from each of the two men:

Novak Djokovic commented: “I am excited to have one of my greatest rivals on the same side of the net, as my Coach. Looking forward to start of the season and competing in Australia alongside Andy with whom I have shared many exceptional moments on the Australian soil.”

Andy Murray commented: “I’m going to be joining Novak’s team in the off season, helping him to prepare for the Australian Open. I’m really excited for it and looking forward to spending time on the same side of the net as Novak for a change, helping him to achieve his goals.”

Once my initial shock wore off, I began to process this partnership. And the more I thought about it, the more I liked it.

Djokovic and Murray’s Long History Together:

Two baby boys born just a week apart in May 1987 in opposite corners of Europe charted parallel (and eventually colliding) courses to the top of the tennis worlds. Murray and Djokovic first met as youths, and entered several of the same tournaments as juniors (including both the Junior French Open and Junior U.S. Open in 2003). Both were being discussed as Next Big Things as they reached adulthood, and both were being discussed as British hopefuls then, too: the Lawn Tennis Association was recruiting Djokovic to switch his nationality to Britain, so desperate were they to break a major drought that was entering its eighth decade in men’s singles.

Djokovic had the early edge when both were rising up the professional ranks: he won his first four matches against Murray, made a major final first (at the 2007 U.S. Open, a year before Murray made the final there a year later), and won a major first (the 2008 Australian Open). Murray won their next three matches after that to tighten their head-to-head to 4-3, but Djokovic swung it hard back in his favor by routing Murray in the first of their seven major finals, at the 2011 Australian Open.

Murray got his first huge win over Djokovic in the semifinals of the 2012 Olympics at Wimbledon, beating him 7-5, 7-5 en route to a breakthrough gold medal. Murray backed up that win by hanging on for a five-set win in the final of the U.S. Open a month later, outlasting Djokovic in a four-hour, 54-minute final, the longest of their many marathon matches.

Murray also won his first Wimbledon title over Djokovic in the 2013 final, but most of the big matches went Djokovic’s way, including three more Australian Open finals and a French Open final. A head-to-head that had been as close as 8-7 in Djokovic’s favor swung to 24-10 in Djokovic’s favor.

Murray made an intense push to surpass Djokovic in late 2016: he won the Paris-Bercy Masters to reach the No. 1 ranking for the first time after years of striving, and then beat Djokovic in the final of the ATP World Tour Finals in London to secure the coveted year-end top spot.

But the almighty effort seemed to drain Murray, proving perhaps permanently pyrrhic. Djokovic beat him in the final of a small tournament in Qatar a couple months later to start 2017, which turned into a season of struggles for both that saw them both fall out of the Top 10.

While Djokovic recovered by mid-2018 and shot back up to the top of the rankings, winning another 12 major titles to double his count to 24, Murray never reached another major final. He didn’t even reach another major quarterfinal after Wimbledon 2017, hobbled by chronic hip injuries.

Why This Partnership Could Work:

This nascent coaching collaboration isn’t the first time the pair have joined forces: apart from their 36 singles matches against one another, Djokovic and Murray also twice shared the court together as doubles partners. The first occasion came at the 2006 Australian Open when they were both highly-hyped 18-year-old newcomers onto the tour, and then again at the 2011 Miami Open, two months after their first major final meeting months earlier in Melbourne. With Djokovic probably being the weakest doubles player in the Big 4, the tandem lost in the first round both times.

Their online fanbases might not get along, and their respective politics resonate with very different parts of the spectrum, but Djokovic and Murray have stayed on pretty good terms throughout their rivalry. They were not especially close friends, but they mostly remained friendly during their rivalry, or at the very least consistently collegial. Notably, when Murray was given opportunities to criticize Djokovic’s histrionics after they seemed like a possible inflection point in the 2015 Australian Open final, he didn’t take the bait.

Whatever spice or salt their rivalry might have had at its peak has had many years to mellow. Djokovic and Murray never played each other again after that 2017 match in Qatar¹; put another way, they haven’t been directly pitted against each other since Barack Obama was in office. Even though Murray only retired from tennis in August, he stopped being one of Djokovic’s biggest rivals long before that.

Not every Big 4 permutation ended on fully harmonious terms, to be sure—Djokovic made a point of mentioning Roger Federer’s distaste for him when I asked him about early-career critics this year in Melbourne:

Djokovic and Rafael Nadal also had moments of tension in recent years, particularly when Nadal was clearly unimpressed with Djokovic’s choices around vaccination that led to his deportation from Australia in 2022 (and to Nadal ultimately winning that tournament).

But for Djokovic and Murray, things mostly stayed simpatico.

What’s in It for Novak Djokovic:

The best sign for Novak Djokovic from this hire is that he still has hunger to take risks and to try new things to improve, which I think was not necessarily a given after his inconsistent 2024 season.

After his loss to Jannik Sinner in the Australian Open semifinals—smudging his previously spotless 20-0 record in the last two rounds in Melbourne—Djokovic seemed adrift for months. Continuing a trend of personnel turnover throughout his team, Djokovic parted with his longtime coach Goran Ivanisevic in March, and hadn’t hired a full replacement². Then when Djokovic’s mind came back online around the French Open, his body gave out, to the tune of a torn meniscus. When his body came back in time for Wimbledon, his tennis gave out in a lopsided final loss to Carlos Alcaraz.

But after a year in the wilderness, Djokovic pulled everything together at the 2024 Paris Olympics, finally winning the elusive gold medal which had eluded him on four previous tries (including that crucial loss to Murray in 2012). His win over Alcaraz in the gold medal match was his first win over a top-10 opponent all year.

In an on-court interview with NBC’s Britney Eurton in the moments after his match, Djokovic allowed himself to express a feeling he rarely had: satisfaction.

EURTON: If this was the missing piece to your puzzle, is your puzzle now complete, Novak?

DJOKOVIC: [pauses to realize answer] “Yes! It is. It is. I mean, I’m telling myself, always, that I’m enough. Because I can be very self-critical, and that’s probably one of the biggest battles, internal battles, that I keep on fighting with myself, that I don't feel like I've done enough, I haven't been enough in my life, on the court and off the court. So it's a big lesson for me. I'm super grateful for the blessing to win a historic gold medal for my country, to complete the Golden Slam, to complete all the records.”

EURTON: Is it enough?

DJOKOVIC: “I think so.”

Djokovic’s appetite as the apex predator of men’s tennis had never before seemed satiable, but suddenly he allowed that it might be. The gold medal was the only thing missing from a career that already had more major and Masters 1000 titles than any other, including winning all of those events at least twice, and all but Monte Carlo at least thrice.

I thought there was a non-zero chance after his admission on the clay of Chatrier that Djokovic might retire within that day, or week, or month, or year, but he continued on, playing three more events to wrap up his season. He still seemed hungover—maybe spiritually more than physically—at the U.S. Open, losing to Alexei Popyrin in the third round. After playing at Davis Cup against an undermanned Greek team, Djokovic played the Shanghai Masters (losing to Sinner in the final) and the Six Kings exhibition (losing to Sinner in the semifinals) to wrap up his season. He withdrew from Paris-Bercy and the ATP Finals in Turin, both events where he was defending champion.

With those points falling off, Djokovic’s ranking has slipped to 7th; that means he could face one of the top seeds, including Sinner or Alcaraz, as early as the quarterfinals in Melbourne. But given that he lost to all sorts of less heralded players this year—Luca Nardi, Alejandro Tabilo, Tomas Machac—danger could loom even earlier for Djokovic in Melbourne, especially if he arrived at all ambivalent about his need for more success in tennis.

In Murray, Djokovic has found perhaps the only person whose hunger for tennis has consistently matched or even exceeded his own. Despite his failing body, Murray pushed onward and onward, harder and harder, meaningfully jeopardizing his ability to walk in the pursuit of being able to keep playing tennis despite diminishing returns. Whatever Djokovic lacked in terms of dedication or determination this year, Murray still had in overflowing buckets, buckets that sometimes fogged up his judgment: his eagerness to play a full schedule on clay likely cost him the physical ability to play singles at Wimbledon in his farewell appearance there.

Djokovic enlisting Murray, therefore, is a sign that Djokovic is motivated and wants to become more motivated, at least through this fast-approaching 2025 Australian Open. Djokovic respects Murray and all he’s done enough to be sure that he wouldn’t bring Murray along only to waste his time with ambivalence.

Djokovic also gets a coach in Murray who perhaps knows Djokovic’s game more intimately than any other viable coaching option. Though Djokovic had the upper hand in their rivalry ultimately, Murray defeated him 11 times, and will thus know what weaknesses Djokovic might want to shore up.

What’s in It for Andy Murray:

The benefits for Novak Djokovic are pretty clear, I think, but why would Andy Murray want this gig so soon after retiring?

Well, as it was clear from watching Murray for the last several years, he had no interest in retiring: he would have played well into his 40s, at least, if physically capable. Whenever this offer came along from Djokovic, it offered Murray an immediate chance to get back on the ride and feel the highs of contending for the biggest titles atop men’s tennis once more, including the elusive Australian Open title which he never managed to nab despite five trips to the final.

A lot of the immediate reactions I saw from Murray fans expressed some disappointment that Murray hadn’t chosen a player lower down on the totem pole to bless with his wisdom, like this Scottish follower of mine on BlueSky (where you can now follow me if you’ve joined the growing crowd over there) below:

And this is true: Murray would have a lot to offer a lot of young players, including young British hopefuls like Jack Draper or Jacob Fearnley, as well as various WTA players whom he also consistently held in high regard; seeing how ready he apparently was to get back onto the tour ASAP, I actually feel sort of silly for not recommending Murray when listing off possible coaching options for Iga Swiatek last month.

But here’s why I think Djokovic makes sense for Murray in this moment: Djokovic is entirely capable of winning another major title immediately. He’s still ranked No. 2 behind only Sinner in the Elo ratings, and he’s won ten times before in Melbourne. If Murray didn’t want to cool off too much from the heat of the spotlight, and feared the painful FOMO of a refractory period away from the game, this was a way to do it.

As much as spending quiet time with his four kids at home might’ve been one way to salve the pain of missing competition, Murray was clearly not ready to be idle. Before this news, Murray had already announced that he’s doing a theatre tour next year, holding conversations with Scottish sportscaster Andrew Cotter in front of audience during the 2025 British grass season.

Andy Murray will be Centre Stage next year, if not on Centre Court.

Most urgently, a chance to coach a peer of his will likely never come again for Murray. Djokovic, 37, is the only player of his generation left atop the sport; Murray’s buddy Grigor Dimitrov, four years younger, could also be an option some day soon, but Djokovic and Murray have history that he wouldn’t be able to match with any other possible player.

Murray will have the entire rest of his career to work with whomever else fans might have thought would be a more fulfilling fit—young Brits, WTA players, whomever. To work with another member of the unparalleled Crop of 1987, this was the last chance.

Murray’s Greatest Advantage over Djokovic

With twenty-four major titles, forty Masters 1000 titles, and $185 million in prize money, Novak Djokovic has won way more than anyone else in men’s tennis history. The one thing Djokovic hasn’t won more than his peers, though, particularly compared to Murray, is the support of crowds at the biggest tournaments.

Djokovic has learned to delude himself into hearing an alternate audio track at some of his biggest matches, as he told Jon Wertheim:

“I like to transmute it in a way: When the crowd is chanting ‘Roger! Roger!’ I hear ‘Novak! Novak!’ It sounds silly, but I try to convince myself that it’s like that.”

While crowd darling status was probably not close on the horizon, I think things were already trending in Djokovic’s favor regarding crowds. Barring some new controversy or off-putting moment, I think the mega-champ was already set to become more sympathetic and supported as he grew older and less dominant, the way edges often soften on aging and fading hegemons. But with the rousing and beloved Andy Murray in his corner, Djokovic will likely inspire more warmth, or at least less antipathy.

Was this a primary reason why Djokovic hired Murray? Certainly not one that Djokovic would probably admit. But it might feel nice for Djokovic to enjoy some of that affection in his direction as he takes to the stage for what he admits might be one of his final acts.

Or as Andy Murray might tell Djokovic in the parlance of the day:

♫ “Popular! You’re gonna be pop-u-u-lar!”♫

Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic together in 2012. (Photo by Carine06)

1. Murray pulled out of a possible fourth round match in Madrid in 2022.

2. Djokovic worked with data analyst Boris Bosnjakovic, and then with Viktor Troicki during the Olympics.