Andy Murray’s return to the Wimbledon spotlight as Jack Draper’s coach brings a clear mission: turn a home Slam that has repeatedly stalled his grass-court game into something sharper. Former coaches and fellow British greats point to biomechanical tweaks to D
On a quiet walk toward the courts at Wimbledon, Jack Draper won’t just be carrying his own hopes. He’ll have Andy Murray beside him—close enough to hear, close enough to steer.
The assignment is personal and brutally specific: Draper has never passed the second round at his home Slam, and his frustrating habit on grass is something his new coach is being brought in to correct.
Draper. who drafted in Murray to “supercharge his grass-court game. ” is set to face No6 seed Taylor Fritz in the first round on Tuesday. It’s a draw that should, on paper, keep expectations manageable. But Wimbledon rarely lets players hide for long—especially not when the gaze of British sport is trained on SW19 for a fortnight.
For many years, Draper and Murray have shared a competitive DNA even though their careers—and playing styles—have differed. Justin Sherring. one of Draper’s first coaches and the man who worked with him from age five to 15. describes the mindset he spotted in the teenager as something close to feral.
“When he was a kid,” Sherring tells Daily Mail Sport, “everything was about Andy.” He adds that Murray was “the absolute role model,” and that watching Draper develop was like seeing “the eyes light up” and a kind of warning in them.
Sherring’s point is simple and vivid. He says there were moments where. if you looked closely. you could see the same fire in Federer too—because “the eyes light up and you’re like ‘you better not be in his way if you’re walking down that alleyway’.” For a young competitor. that is the language of survival.
Now that alleyway will look familiar. Draper and Murray will be walking down it together, the latest evolution in a relationship that moved from devotee and idol, to competitors and, occasionally, Davis Cup team-mates, and has arrived at something rarer: player and coach.
What Murray is expected to bring isn’t just belief. It’s instruction—and in a few key areas, it’s already landed.
Murray’s second coaching stint is fresh off his 2025 “dream-team alliance” with Novak Djokovic. and even though that partnership “petered out as results flatlined. ” it delivered a signature high point: Djokovic’s defeat of Carlos Alcaraz in the quarter-finals of the US Open. where the strategy of “going extremely aggressively into the Spaniard’s forehand wing worked a treat.”.
That matters for Draper because it frames how Murray approaches a match: not as inspiration alone, but as decisions.
Former Murray coach Mark Petchey—who coached Murray as he emerged on to the tour—puts it even more sharply. Petchey says Murray had. even as a teenager. “one of the most analytical minds ever. ” and that he could “pick apart a player’s weaknesses like a surgeon does a patient with a scalpel.” Petchey recalls that he didn’t necessarily imagine a coaching future at the time. but adds: “as time has gone by you didn’t need to be Nostradamus to see he would be world-class in a coaching capacity.”.
It is that blend—strategy plus technical development—that Murray is now turning toward Draper.
From the start of discussions, Murray made it clear he would not be a full-time travelling coach. The grass season is the easiest time for him to contribute, because he can be based at home, and because it’s also when his presence can be most useful.
Those adjustments are already visible. Draper told in Eastbourne that Murray had been instrumental in making biomechanical changes to his serve.
But the grass problem for Draper has never been just one thing. Henman, working as a commentator at Wimbledon for the BBC, points to an area that can’t be fixed with brute-force repetition.
“Jack has the arsenal to be very good on grass,” Henman says. “The one area he needs to improve is his movement.” Henman describes the contrast with hard courts: on hard courts. sure footing allows a player to drive in and out of corners; on grass. it requires subtlety—“to glide in and out of shots.” He adds that Murray “understands those details. ” and that it would be valuable “for Jack to have that input.”.
Sherring agrees that grass asks different questions. He believes Draper needs to play with more aggression. and he suggests Draper’s past success on slower surfaces may have trained his body into the wrong tempo for Wimbledon. He points to Draper’s run to the final of Madrid on clay. his Indian Wells title on slow hard courts. and the way those wins can make a player’s comfort zone hard to abandon.
“So it’s quite tricky to come away from something where you’ve had obvious success,” Sherring says, “and your body knows you’ve had success. On grass it’s about being a bit braver on the forehand side, being a bit more offensive.”
A look at the data supports the argument that Draper has been playing too passively on grass. The graphics referenced via TennisViz show Draper’s contact points with the ball for groundstrokes on grass in 2024 and 2025. The numbers and comparisons are direct: Draper’s baseline returns were up eight percentage points in 2025 compared to 2024. and his proportion of points played at the net fell by six percentage points from 2024 to 2025.
The suggestion that follows is straightforward: if Draper wants Wimbledon to look different, he has to change what he’s doing when the rally begins—wind back two years and increase the level of aggression.
Sherring frames it in terms of instinct. “It’s a bit like Andy,” he says. “When you’re so used to grinding and almost enjoy the suffering, it’s tough to move away from that DNA.”
Petchey, though, sees a slightly different route to the same destination. He believes coach Murray can adapt Draper’s naturally attritional gameplan into something that suits grass, rather than trying to remake Draper into someone else.
“Seeing his game through Andy’s eyes will allow him to produce his best tennis,” Petchey says. He adds that Murray believes “great defence beats great offense” and thinks Draper has a similar outlook. In Petchey’s view. Murray will help Draper feel that grass tennis can still be his—without forcing him into “a more extravagant brand of tennis he is less comfortable with.”.
That isn’t just about mechanics. Wimbledon is also about pressure, and Draper arrives there with a particular kind of spotlight.
Sherring says Murray can help Draper with the “expectation of being a British player going into Wimbledon.” He stresses it didn’t happen for Andy immediately at all, and argues Draper can be patient because “everyone’s got their own journey” and “His time will come.”
Petchey adds that one of the hardest parts for a British player isn’t the sport itself, but what it feels like to be watched by a whole country. “Andy will have a complete understanding of what it’s like for Jack to have that pressure on him and how to deal with it,” Petchey says.
He also pushes back against a common misconception. “One of the most common misconceptions is Brits don’t like the pressure,” Petchey says. “The ones that have a genuine shot of winning Wimbledon revel in the pressure, they don’t fear it. Andy will see that in Jack too.”
Henman echoes that experience from his own career. He says one of the questions he’s been asked most in his life was about pressure of expectation, yet he “never felt that it was a burden.” He says he “absolutely loved it” and that it gave him “an enormous lift.”
The calendar is tight and the numbers are stark. Draper is coming off 12 months of injuries. and he meets Taylor Fritz as No6 seed in the first round on Tuesday. There is also a sign of movement: Draper reached the fourth round or better at the other three Grand Slams. yet his Wimbledon record has remained stuck—after last year’s defeat by veteran Marin Cilic.
After that loss, Draper said, “I’ve been really disappointed with the way my game’s been on the grass this year.” He described feeling “great on hard courts” and “great on clay,” saying he felt there weren’t “many holes in my game,” then added that when he came onto grass, “I felt a big difference.”
That is why Murray’s presence is more than a feel-good story. It’s a deliberate attempt to close those holes.
Sherring says that while rust is always likely—“like a boxer that’s been out of a ring for a year”—getting onto court and competing can spark momentum. He says he has watched Draper in training over the last few weeks around the National Tennis Centre. reports “good signs. ” and believes the hunger is still there.
“I’ve seen him around the National Tennis Centre,” Sherring says. “I look at him a little bit different: I look at him and think, is there still that fire in the eyes and that hunger in his voice? One hundred per cent. I don’t see anything different. He’s ready to go.”
For Wimbledon, ready has to become repeatable.
The promise of Murray’s coaching is that it will. The promise of Draper is whether he can turn his aggression on grass back up to the level where his game stops waiting for points and starts taking them—while the British pressure, instead of smothering him, becomes fuel.
Andy Murray Jack Draper Wimbledon Taylor Fritz Marin Cilic grass court coaching serve changes British pressure SW19