Djokovic on his collaboration with Murray: "I am happy that he decided to continue with me"
Novak Djokovic is back at Indian Wells. A year after his early exit against Luca Nardi, the Serb is well present in the Californian desert this year and hopes to triumph in this first Masters 1000 of the season for the first time since 2016, where he had beaten Milos Raonic before completing the Sunshine Double in Miami against Kei Nishikori.
Nine years later, one of Djokovic's greatest rivals at the time, Andy Murray, has retired and became his coach at the end of last season, much to the surprise of tennis observers.
The Briton began his new duties at the start of the year during the Australian Open, where Djokovic reached the semi-finals before withdrawing against Zverev due to a hamstring injury sustained against Alcaraz in the quarter-finals.
Now recovered, Novak Djokovic hopes to win his 100th career title, and after a discussion with Murray, the two men decided to continue their collaboration, which should extend until the summer. This is at least the wish of the Serb who mentioned the Scot during his pre-tournament press conference.
"Personally, I want to move forward. The very day we finished the Australian Open, I told Andy that I wanted to continue with him. It took him some time to think about all of this.
Andy spoke with his family, as he wanted to define precisely to what extent he wanted to commit and where he could travel with me to work and thus plan his schedule.
I am happy that he decided to continue with me, whether it be during Indian Wells, Miami, and even during most of the clay court season.
We will discuss after Miami, obviously, but I think the plan is to continue until the end of Roland-Garros, and even until Wimbledon as well. I appreciate my relationship with Andy.
I still feel that we approach the learning process on the court in a different way than we did for 25 years," assured Djokovic, who will open his Indian Wells tournament against Botic van de Zandschulp.
Indian Wells