it's always something.

johan - do you think there's any truth in all the talk about cahill?

I've just been listening to Cahill commenting on the SF with Lopez. He had a few things to say about Andy's technique but it didn't sound to me like he was about to take on the job:)

It was a very weird match with patches of very good tennis. Andy waltzed through a love lst set and then Lopez caught fire and left him reeling in the 2nd. If it weren't for the fact that Feli's lst serve went off and he was broken in the first game of the final set, Andy came perilously close to losing that match.

But if he can serve as well as he did for most of the SF, I think his speed and variety will stand him in good stead against Querry tonight.

Interesting. Thnx.

Andy could have, and should have, won that match!

Here's what Darren Cahill said yesterday:

"If Murray wants him as a full-time coach, it cannot happen, but if a part-time arrangement is in the offing, he may be able to consider it. "

I think Cahill should wait until he's asked - is he that good a coach, anyway? What successes has he had in the past 7 years, the game has moved on.

Considering Cahill's many responsibilities to the Adidas players, I doubt he could be an effective coach for Murray. Andy needs a full-time coach, whose loyalty is his 100 per cent of the time, not a coach whose loyalties are divided. For instance, who will Cahill support if Verdasco is playing vs. Murray? I'm sure somewhere in their discussions, the opposition's strategy will leak out. It would be a very awkward situation for both coach and player. It's sort of similar to someone, a fan, who supposedly has many faves, and when two faves face off against the other, for which player will the fan be rooting. Likewise, in whose box will Cahill be sitting?

That's a very good point, Von.

.............Since joining Adidas as a coaching consultant, Cahill has helped a string of Adidas-sponsored players, including Fernando Verdasco, Fernando Gonzalez and Ana Ivanovic.............

Judging by the above, why would anyone want Cahill as a coach, he has not achieved anything of note recently, Murray doesn't want to end up like Ivanovic does he?

My understanding is that Cahill is not interested in being Murray's coach. I think he has a full plate and other obligations that would not make it practical.

There is no question that Murray could use some help. He has to find the right match with his personality and temperament. Someone needs to help him work on his mental toughness, that second serve, the forehand and please, dear God, find other ways of expressing his frustration than smashing his knuckles against his racket!

If I have it right, the way Andy Murray tells the story, he was spending too much time alone with Coach Brad Gilbert, making the relationship uncomfortable. So he fired Gilbert to take up a team of coaches.Now, the team concept is uncomfortable, so he fired Miles Maclagan this week, and will begin looking for a new coach.What does he look for now? Murray just keeps adding every day to the evidence that he's a hedcase of the biggest kind.He keeps firing coaches even though he now has tremendous fitness, footwork and stamina (thanks to Gilbert) and also athleticism, strokes, size, strength, intelligence and work ethic.

The problem with Andy Murray is not coming from the outside. It's the special thing missing between a good player and a champion. Murray hasn't found it yet, and might not even have it.When Murray wakes up in the morning and looks in the mirror, he doesn't see a champion. So he tries a new coach.

This is apparently coach-changing season in tennis, as both finalists from the Australian Open in January have decided six months later that things aren't right. Directions change fast in tennis.Roger Federer, who never seems willing to commit to a coach, hired Paul Annacone, Pete Sampras' former coach, on a trial basis. Murray dumped Maclagan, who was the head of Team Andy, I guess, but was apparently not in agreement on Murray's game with another team member, Alex Corretja. Funny how both moves can look so different. For Federer, it was a great move, a willingness to finally admit that he has a problem and that he isn't ready, at 28, to start fading. For Murray, it's scapegoating.

"It's easy to start over-thinking things and over-analyzing things," Murray said. "I don't think there's a problem with my game. I just need to get better, and that's something that maybe hasn't happened the last four or five months."

How ironic that he brings up over-thinking and over-analyzing. That's exactly what's wrong with him. He can't find the balance between thinking and following the John Daly model: Grip it and rip it.

He has gotten better through the years. He doesn't run out of steam anymore, and has figured out how to use his speed. He also doesn't choke.

But he tries to masterfully work through a point, keep making shots and waiting for an opponent to make a mistake. It works great except for a couple things:

Roger Federer isn't going to make three sets worth of errors in a major. And when someone who pounds the ball has one of those days when everything goes in, the way Marin Cilic did when he beat Murray at the U.S. Open last year, then they don't have to hit a lot of shots. They just hit winners.

Murray can keep switching coaches, but he really needs to search within. Start with a 23-year-old man who apparently still plays hours and hours of video games every day, reportedly the big problem in the relationship with his girlfriend. When Gilbert left Murray, too, he said something about seven hours a day of video games.

Murray said it's all about winning majors now. As a result, he hasn't even won a non-major this year.Anyone can see what's wrong with him. He can't expect the best players to hand him a major, but he won't take one. As the saying goes,you can take a horse to the trough,but you can not make the horse drink the water.

May I ask some questions? It seems to me that Murray is one guy who has his own ideas and would not like to be told what to do. What about his mum? Does she have any involvement in his tennis career development right now? Or is she not allowed to give her son any direction? Will he listen to his mum or simply shut her out of his way?

It seems that all is gloomy right now for Murray, eight months now without a title, not even a 250 event title when he was seeded no.1. Does he still think that he is moving in the right direction? Do you all think that the Wimbledon SF loss to Rafa has any impact on him? Does he think that he is getting closer to winning a slam the way he played that SF, or does he feel disappointed with another failure again?

luckystar, only Murray knows the answer to all these. We can all have opinions as to why players lose a match or go through a bad patch, but only the player knows exactly why, whether it's due to fatigue, not playing well, whether in his heart he couldn't play any better even without injury because the other player was better.

Murray is a very talented player with a lot of weapons in his amoury, but sometimes in tennis, the difference between winning and losing is luck, i.e. winning the important points, and if a player feels that he is playing as well as anyone and keeps losing, it could get frustrating. When Rafa was losing all those matches last year and beginning of this year, he always said that he was happy that he was playing well, and he knew that what was lacking was confidence, Murray will work it out for himself, but he needs someone at his side, but I don't think that person should be his Mum, for their relationship sake.

Thanks nadline for the reply. I'm not one who watches Murray closely so that's why I've so many questions in my mind. His mum is also a tennis coach but I'm not sure whether she sees the problems in her son. If she does but does nothing to help then that's a bit strange, unless like what I mentioned, he may not want to listen to her.

Concerning Rafa's results earlier on this year, we as his fans could see for ourselves that what was lacking in Rafa's game was his confidence. We watched his matches long enough to understand that and he was not wrong when he mentioned that he was playing well then. He didn't play badly during that AO QF match, in fact he played well, but his 'saving of breakpoints faced' ability let him down, due to his lacking in confidence and seemed a bit panicky during crucial moments in that match. Remember, when Rafa was back to his winning ways, he even joked about him becoming a break points saved specialist?