Murray and Lendl’s successful two-year partnership comes to an end

Current world number six Andy Murray and Ivan Lendl have officially announced the end of their two-year working relationship as player and coach respectively on the tennis tour. The pair started working together in January 2012.

Under American-naturalised Lendl, Murray achieved his maiden Grand Slam title, the US Open, just after winning gold for Great Britain at the 2012 London Olympics. The biggest prize of all, however, was his terrific triumph in 2013 over Novak Djokovic at Wimbledon, to become the first British champion at the famous tournament since Fred Perry in 1936.

The split appears to be an amicable one, with 54-year-old Lendl – an eight-time Grand Slam winner – suggesting he wants to spend more time achieving his own personal aims.

“Working with Andy over the last two years has been a fantastic experience for me,” said the Czechoslovakia-born former world number one. “He is a first class guy.

“Having helped him achieve his goal of winning major titles, I feel like it is time for me to concentrate on some of my own projects moving forward including playing more events around the world which I am really enjoying.

“I will always be in Andy’s corner and wish him nothing but great success as he too goes into a new phase of his career.”

Murray was equally complimentary of most successful coach. He said: “I’m eternally grateful to Ivan for all his hard work over the past two years, the most successful of my career so far.

“As a team, we’ve learned a lot and it will definitely be of benefit in the future. I’ll take some time with the team to consider the next steps and how we progress from here.”

Scotsman Murray is currently in Miami for the upcoming Sony Open tournament, where he is fourth favourite at 9/1 to defend his title. He has a bye into the second round, but the first day features English teenager Kyle Edmund up against Julien Benneteau. He has odds of 9/2 to win.