Wimbledon 2018: The young Britons who benefit from mentor Andy Murray’s personal touch

They all have an Andy Murray story. For Liam Broady, it was a simple text message — Murray the first person to congratulate him as he qualified for the Miami Open main draw earlier this year. When Cameron Norrie made his first tentative steps into the professional ranks last year, the then world No1 approached him in the Queen’s Club locker room to invite him to practise.

Murray’s Wimbledon participation still hangs in the balance, but his performances there — a decade of reaching the quarter-finals at the very least — and help have left an inedible mark on the current crop of British talent.

Ranked fourth in Britain, just behind Murray, Broady says: “There’s no one in tennis I know that does anything to the degree that he does. Andy’s the one person most bothered about helping British players.

“I think it’s funny that a few years ago the British public didn’t necessarily have a good relationship with him. He’s such a good person, he just wants to raise people up with him.”

For Broady, the thing that resonates is how quick Murray is to message him when he enjoys on-court success. “When I qualified in Miami, he was the very first person to get in touch,” he recalls. “It turns out he was watching the matches on a live stream. It’s great to have someone like that on your side.”

Miami is central to much that Murray has done to help his fellow Brits: his winter training base, his second home and where he has opened his doors to so many players for training, often at his own expense.

Kyle Edmund has credited his Floridian stints — at which he has mirrored Murray’s training regime — for climbing into the world’s top 20.

“He doesn’t ask for anything back from helping me out, but I’m so grateful to have the best British player of all time and someone who will go down as one of the best players in history helping me,” says the man who has replaced the Scot at the top of the British rankings after Murray underwent hip surgery in January.

“He doesn’t overload you with information but he’s always available. Anything you ask him, he always answers and it’s never refused.”

There are many different ways in which Murray passes on his knowledge to others.

Jay Clarke was a familiar face on the other side of the net from Murray at Wimbledon’s practice courts a year ago, first approached as a hitting partner before that year’s French Open and brought over to Roland Garros by Murray.

But the help for the 19-year-old goes beyond that.

“He has someone from his team that gathers all the stats on all the players and Andy’s always willing to pass that on. If I’m playing someone who has dropped down from the main tour, it might be about where he serves or his serve percentage” Clarke says. “Facing someone for the first time and knowing where they’ll serve 70 per cent of the time is huge.

“That shows the level he’s willing to help the next generation of British players. It’s like his own legacy — and he doesn’t have to do it.”

Murray’s selflessness is, perhaps, best typified by the summer of 2016 after winning Wimbledon for the second time.

A few days later, Britain had a Davis Cup tie in Serbia and, while Murray understandably did not play, he turned up as the team’s No1 cheerleader.

One LTA official described it as “the most selfless act in a selfish sport”.

Norrie, who has climbed into the world’s top 100, has yet to experience Davis Cup tennis with Murray but met his fellow Briton at Queen’s a year ago and has been a regular hitting partner on the grass this year.

“He came right over to me, which was a big gesture, and asked if I wanted to hit with him,” recalls Norrie, who didn’t need to be asked twice.

He has yet to receive the Miami invite to training but jokes that, if it comes, “I’ll be on the first plane!”

Quite how Norrie and the other hopefuls fare at Wimbledon remains to be seen, but it is clear from the words of his fellow Britons that the Murray effect will be felt a long time after Wimbledon fortnight is over.