"I knew him really well because he kicked my a** about 17 times" - Darren Cahill on his role in Ivan Lendl coaching Andy Murray
Ival Lendl played a big role in Andy Murray's career, helping him to the biggest titles of his career and seeing him ranked as the ATP World No. 1.
The Czech–American first worked with the Brit between 2012 and 2014, during which he helped Murray win an Olympic gold medal as well as his maiden Grand Slam title at the US Open.
Murray also finished as the runner-up at Wimbledon in 2012, losing to Roger Federer in the final, but clinched the title at SW19 23 the following year with a dominant 6-4, 7-5, 6-4 victory over Novak Djokovic. In doing so, he became the first British men’s tennis player to win Wimbledon in 77 years.
Lendle and Murray parted ways in March 2014 before reuniting in June 2016. By the end of that year, the Brit had clinched his second Wimbledon title, a second Olympic gold medal, and was victorious in the ATP World Tour Finals. He had also regained the World No. 1 ranking by then.
Speaking on an episode of The Big Deal - Australian Sports Business Podcast, Darren Cahill shed light on the role he played in Lendl coaching Murray.
"About 10 or 11 years ago, at one point I was helping Andy Murray and we were helping Andy for about three or four months and it got to a point where he needed to find a coach. So we'd spoken about a number of coaches, and one of the names that came up was Ivan Lendl," he explained.
"And I knew Ivan really well but Andy had never met Ivan before. I knew Ivan really well because he kicked my ass about 17 times and we used to practice together all the time as well. And so I said, I'll make the call for you Andy, just to see whether or not he'd be interested in coaching you," he continue
On the ATP tour, Cahill faced Lendl four times and never managed to register a win. The Australian lost to Lendl on three surfaces — indoor hardcourt, claycourt and grasscourt.
Recollecting the conversation with Lendl, Cahill said:
"I made the call to Ivan, we spoke about 20 minutes and I told him the story about Andy and I knew that he was interested because he had spoken publicly about Andy’s game and how much he loved this game. And I said 'would you be interested in coaching him?'"
He added:
"And he said ‘Darren I have one great question for you. You need to answer this question before I'll give you an answer. Do you want me to coach Andy Murray? Or does Andy Murray want me to coach Andy Murray? Like, is this coming from you or is this coming from Andy?’ I said ‘Really good questions so I'll call you back,’" he state
Cahill then spoke with Murray and got his consent, and the rest, as they say, is history.
"I called up Andy and I said ‘Andy look. He's interested. But you need to want this. Do you want this to happen? Because he needs to know that you want this to happen?’ He goes. ‘Yeah, absolutely I want this to happen.’ I hung up, called Ivan back, got the meeting organized and away they went," Cahill conclude
Andy Murray and Darren Cahill embarked on third coaching stint in 2022
Andy Murray reunited with Ivan Lendl in March last year in a bid to find his form and fight his way up the ATP rankings ladder.
The Brit felt he was in the final stretch of his career and believed that he needed Lendl's guidance to give his all once again. Speaking in an interview with GQ, he said:
"I spoke to my team and it was like, “Look, I don't have much time on my side here. I know, I'm coming towards the end of my career and I don't really have the opportunity to spend lots of time trialling coaches.” I want to have a setup where I know the people that I'm working with, that they understand me and that's when Ivan’s name came up. I actually had the discussion with him whilst I was still in Australia."
The three-time Grand Slam winner added:
"To me, just because we had stopped working together twice before, that didn’t mean that it wasn’t something that could work again in the future. I think that you need to put your ego to one side in those situations and find a way of making it work better than it did the last time. Maybe learning from some of the issues or the problems that there were."
It was under Lendl's guidance that Murray registered two marathon five-set wins at the 2023 Australian Open. While he has not added more Majors to his trophy cabinet, Murray has shown signs that a third stint under Lendl is proving beneficial to him.