Alexander Zverev’s announcement about Ivan Lendl joining his coaching team was fairly recent. However, it has been a development that looked to be the cards for a long time–from March 2018.
In these six months, Zverev continued to hem-and-haw his answers when periodically asked about Lendl joining his team. His declaration of the move now, therefore, comes across as him taking control over the narrative – of a “supercoach” joining his team, instead of acknowledging hints and insinuations, as it would have been earlier.
Be as it may, Zverev’s assertive announcement hasn’t stopped predictions from being made about how successful this team-up would be in the days to come. It’s understandable why and how such assessments are being formed, with Lendl’s former days as Andy Murray’s coach being broached about over and over again.
The high-point of Lendl’s coaching career has been described as him helping out Murray win two Wimbledon titles. In many ways, it’s indeed remarkable since each of Murray’s Wimbledon wins came in each of Lendl’s two separate coaching stints with the Brit. But Lendl’s association of Murray is more than the number of Majors the latter won under his tutelage.
On a macro-level, Lendl helped centre Murray’s career – as someone who could continue to believe in himself, despite the numerous setbacks he faced in the Majors’ finals – giving him an identity of a Major champion, much before Murray became one.
Cut to Zverev, who has had his fair share of problems in doing well in the Slams, it is expected that Lendl would lead on a similar trajectory as Murray. Perhaps, even extended to where Murray had been left unexpectedly stranded.
Yet, in this easy reminiscing, it has been just as quickly forgotten that the partnership between Lendl and Murray also took time to develop before it saw fruition in the form of Majors. The style of working that Lendl came to symbolise with his customary no-nonsense attitude was, then, perhaps the most effectual stamp which came to describe their coach-player relationship.
The players’ names have changed now, but there shouldn’t be any doubting that Lendl’s current coaching role would have the same distinctiveness as it did in the past. There is, however, the other side to this tale. That of Zverev’s.
At the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati, while it still remained unknown, Zverev spoke about Lendl potentially joining his coaching team. He observed in one of his press conferences, “He knows what it takes, he knows what it takes to win at every single level of our sport so he’s definitely someone (who) can help a lot.”
It sounded promising then, as it does now.
Thus, along with any – and all – value-additions Lendl would bring to the table, the success of his collaboration with the German would also depend on the actual extent of Zverev’s receptiveness in cooperating with him. With Zverev having relied on a strong familial set-up as his coaching unit, until now–which had seemingly become a point of contention with his then-coach Juan Carlos Ferrero, leading to the end of their partnership–it is to be expected that this would be a transitional period for both parties to get acclimated.
Just as it this transitional phase will be a helpful gauge of Zverev’s temperament–as a prospective Major champion and as the touted world No. 1 of the future–it would also help quiet the persistent murmurs as to whether there was any truth to what Ferrero had said about the 21-year-old’s attitude, once and for all, one way or the other.
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