• Australian Open

Murray the only man I would have coached - Lendl

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Ivan Lendl paid a huge compliment to Andy Murray on Monday, revealing ahead of the Australian Open quarter-finals that the Brit is the only player he would have agreed to coach.

Lendl and Murray are in the embryonic stages of their new partnership, and things have started promisingly. The British No. 1 won his first tournament of the year at the Brisbane International, and he is currently in the last eight of the Australian Open where he will meet Kei Nishikori.

Known as a hard task master, Lendl is seen as the ideal personality to aid Murray as he bids to find the mental toughness to win a first grand slam. And Lendl revealed it was Murray's own inner determination that attracted him to the job.

"Andy is probably the only guy I would work with, at least out of the people that I can think of. We match really well personality-wise," Lendl said on ESPN. "I knew going in that he's a hard worker. That was the most important thing. I'd met hit once or twice when he was very young and he struck me as an extremely polite young man.

"When I got the call, I knew he was a hard worker so I started considering it; I had some of my own issues but he has been an absolute pleasure to work with so far."

Lendl understands better than most the current plight of Murray, who has lost his first three grand slam finals. The Czech player tasted defeat in his first four showpieces before he finally broke his duck, and his main aim appears to be getting Murray to relax about the situation.

"Clearly I understand how he feels, it's not a nice feeling I promise you!" Lendl confessed. "Part of it is about maturing. He's 25 this year, he's still fairly young, you need some experience and some players learn quicker than others.

"You keep doing your thing and when the opportunity is there and the door opens, you just step through it. But you have to put yourself in the position to step through it.

"Everybody makes a big deal of Andy going 0-3 in finals, he lost to Roger Federer twice - arguably the greatest player of all time, and he lost to Novak Djokovic last year which, at the time looked like a bad loss, but if that had happened at the US Open everybody would be saying Novak had a fantastic year and nobody would be riding [Andy's] tail."

Lendl confirmed his major role is on the psychological side of things, lightening the mood of training with a series of jokes, but he revealed he would not dream of trying to re-invent Murray's game. The Scot has been accused of being too defensive at times in previous finals, but Lendl insists he will allow Murray to find his own way to glory.

"If you can be good at your job and have a good time doing it, you'll be better at it," Lendl explained.

"Andy's a very intelligent player; I learned from Tony Roche years ago... I would say, 'Tony, should I have done this or that?' And he said, 'You're on the court, you make the best decision in the situation. I can't tell you what to do because you're the one feeling it.'

"Andy's so intelligent that I'm not going to go there either."

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