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British tennis great Andy Murray boosted his bid for a second Wimbledon title on Sunday by recalling to his team Ivan Lendl, who coached him to his success on ‘home turf’ in 2013.
The 29-year-old Scot — who also won the 2012 US Open and Olympic gold in the same year under Lendl’s aegis — revealed the news of his reunion with the former Czech world number one in a statement.
“I had two very successful years working with Ivan, he’s single-minded and knows what it takes to win the big events,” said Murray.
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“I’m looking forward to Ivan joining the team again and helping me try and reach my goals.”
Lendl’s first target will be this week’s key Wimbledon lead-up event Queen’s.
“I enjoyed working with Andy in the past,” said Lendl.
“Andy and I have always stayed in contact so it should be fun to be part of his team again,” added the 56-year-old.
Lendl originally left Murray’s employ in 2014 because he had had enough of the incessant travelling.
Murray eventually replaced eight-time Grand Slam singles champion Lendl — for whom Wimbledon was the only Grand Slam title to elude him, losing in two finals — with former French female star Amelie Mauresmo.
However, whilst he regained his number two spot in the world rankings, he failed to add to his Grand Slam trophy haul and split from her earlier this year.
Since then he had relied on former British professional player Jamie Delgado, and he subsequently became the first British player to reach the French Open final since 1937, beating defending champion Stan Wawrinka in the semi-finals.
However, despite winning the first set he went down to a four set defeat to world number one Novak Djokovic.
