Andy Murray says Ivan Lendl is the right man at the right time to make him play like World No1 again at Roland Garros
Scot has been struggling for form this year but coach's return has seen him reach quarters in Paris
BACK To Basics was a disastrous policy for Tory Prime Minister John Major — but it is clearly working for Andy Murray.
The world No 1 has been keeping a close eye on the twists and turns of the General Election campaign back home.
But on the practice court here in Paris with head coach Ivan Lendl, focusing on the simple things has put Murray’s own glory bid back on track.
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The Brit, 30, said: “A lot of the time when things are not going well you start overthinking things.
“You start wanting to try new things on the practice court, changing tensions in your racket.
“You think all sorts of things to work out what is going wrong.
“And the one thing we did when Ivan got here, we went right back to the basics.
“The drills we were doing were all very basic, pretty simple drills but we spent a lot of time on the court.
“We hit lots of balls. No time in the gym really. It was just tennis, plain tennis and literally getting back to doing the basics right.
“Making a lot of balls, making myself difficult to beat. And then once you start to do that, you get through a couple of matches, you start feeling better, your confidence grows.
“It can be right down here,” — Murray gestured down low — “and it can go right up here pretty quickly and that has been the case so far this tournament.”
It is too simple to say that being reunited with Lendl in Paris after a four-month gap has turned Murray’s season around.
As Muzza himself has pointed out, no one was asking, “Where’s Ivan?” when he was on his brilliant winning run last year and seemed to be playing the best tennis of his life with assistant coach Jamie Delgado by his side.
But perhaps eight-time Grand Slam winner Lendl was the right man at the right time, a former champion with extra experience of the highs and lows of top-level tennis, who could identify what Murray needed in a time of crisis.
Whatever the reasons, the real Andy Murray is back.
If you had polled the great and good of tennis just a fortnight ago, few would have voted for Murray as a likely winner of the French Open.
And the revitalised ace is just as eager to make his voice heard in another swiftly-changing battle for supremacy.
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Murray has made sure that leaving the UK before his postal vote arrived at his home will not prevent him taking part in the General Election.
The Scot said: “Me and my wife, we are actually getting postal votes brought out. And then they will be taken back.
“We’ve watched pretty much all of the debates. I’ve tried to keep up with it as much as possible.”
Murray’s next challenge on the Roland Garros campaign trail is today’s quarter-final against Kei Nishikori, Japan’s world No 9 who put him out at the same stage of the US Open last year.
But when it comes to picking a winner, former Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic is very clear: Vote Murray.
The Croatian said: “I don’t see Nishikori beating Andy.
“Nishikori is good for quarters, semis, not more. He is going to crack. Andy is too good.”