ANDY MURRAY TO MARRY KIM SEARS & RESIGNS MAURESMO FOR 2015 , BUT HE SAYS ADIOS TO DANI VALLVERDU & JEZ GREEN

Written by: Staff on 1st December 2014

ANDY MURRAY TO MARRY KIM SEARS & RESIGNS MAURESMO FOR 2015 , BUT HE SAYS ADIOS TO DANI VALLVERDU & JEZ GREEN

epa04506537 Andy Murray of Britain (L) gestures as he rings a bell inside the Philippine Stocks Exchange building in Makati city, at the sideline of International Tennis Premier League (IPTL), Philippines, 28 November 2014. The tennis travelling circus will begin its run in the Philippines, with Andy Murray signed to play three matches for the Manila Mavericks before bolting for the US and a regular December training block in Miami. The IPTL, a hybrid mix of current and former men's and women's players with a few legends tossed into the pool, also fields squads in India, Singapore and Dubai. The Manila weekend is billed as the biggest tennis event in the country since a 1989 exhibition between Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe. EPA/FRANCIS R. MALASIG |

Murray Makes Two Major Announcements

Andy Murray made sure he was safely on a long distance flight bound for the Philippines and his spell in the International Premier Tennis League playing for the Manila Mavericks, when his own management company 77 made two major announcements; the first that the 27 year-old Scot had become engaged to his long-time girlfriend Kim Sears, and the second that he had severed professional ties with his even longer term best friend and permanent travelling coach Dani Vallverdu as well as fitness trainer Jez Green.

Andy Murray & Kim Sears.

The announcement of impending marriage between the former Wimbledon and US Open champion and the 26 year-old daughter of former top-flight WTA coach and present day television analyst Nigel Sears, came as no surprise to anyone who knows the couple. They have been a romantic item for more than nine years, aside for a brief break of six months, and have lived together in the Surrey stockbroker belt west of London since 2010.

Only last Saturday Murray stood as best man to Ross Hutchins, his former British Davis Cup team-mate and the ATP World Tour’s newly appointed Director of Player Relations. The player’s doubles contesting elder brother Jamie is also a firm advocate of marriage having gotten hitched three years ago with Andy also the best man.

Murray’s high-profile mother Judy has publicly pronounced: “Kim is the best thing that has ever happened to Andy.”

Vallverdu would have been one of the prime candidates to be Murray’s best man at the wedding that still doesn’t have a firm date fixed. However the Scot and the Venezuelan who first met as room-mates at the Sanchez-Casal Tennis Academy in Barcelona nearly 14 years ago, are known to have had their differences over the appointment of Amelie Mauresmo as head coach in succession to Ivan Lendl in June.

Vallverdu, who has been a constant in Team Murray for five years and has witnessed the coming and going of head coaches such as Miles Maclagan, Alex Corretja and Lendl. He was also selected to coach the British men’s tennis team for the London Olympics 2012, in which Murray went on to win the singles gold medal.

He became a close confidante of Lendl who said yesterday: “As you know, I think very highly of Dani and Jez and their work.” However Vallverdu was known to have felt slighted at being kept in the dark about the appointment of Mauresmo following Murray’s run to the French Open semi-final under his sole coaching this spring.

A brief statement issued by 77 late yesterday afternoon (Greenwich Mean time) by 77 chief executive Matt Gentry brought to an end Vallverdu and Green’s years of solid service. ‘We sat down at the end of the season and decided a change would be best for all of us,’ said Murray, who flew yesterday to Manila to begin his lucrative stint in the inaugural International Tennis Premier League,” it read.

“My off-season training and Australian Open preparations have already begun and I am very excited for the New Year. I thank Jez and Dani for all their hard work over the years and wish them the best for the future.”

The split was officially described as ‘mutual’ but it is believed severance clauses are in effect and if they were free to comment, it is widely believed Vallverdu and Green would say otherwise. Vallverdu feels he was effectively demoted when Mauresmo came on board and although he filled the main coaching role on this fall’s Asian swing, where Murray broke a 15 month title drought in Shenzhen, he believes he had been marginalized of late.

Andy Murray of Britain (L) and his new coach Amelie Mauresmo (R) during a training session during the rest day of the Wimbledon Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, in London, 29 June 2014. EPA/VALDRIN XHEMAJ

Green’s presence in the Murray camp has been negligible since the US Open. Based in Florida, he stayed home throughout both the Asian swing and more recently the European indoor season where Murray also won titles in Vienna and Valencia before a disappointing Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London.

During that time Green spent some time working with young German Alexander Zverev, which is not understood to have gone down well with Murray. The pair also believed to have disagreed about training schedules with Green wanting to stick to hardworking routines of old that turned Murray into a super-athlete and brought him his greatest achievements. Murray himself is said to favor a modified approach as he heads into his late twenties.

Content via Bob Larson Tennis News

Topics: Amelie Mauresmo, Andy Murray, Dani Vallverdu, Jez Green, Kim Sears, Tennis News

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10sBalls_com says:

November 28, 2014 at 9:32 am

- @andy_murray TO MARRY @KIMSEARS & RESIGNS @AmeMauresmo FOR 2015, BUT HE SAYS ADIOS TO DANI VALLVERDU &…- http://t.co/i8Nrg10DFr #tennis
10sBalls_com says:

December 1, 2014 at 8:39 pm

-@andy_murray TO MARRY #KIMSEARS & RESIGNS @AmeMauresmo FOR 2015, BUT HE SAYS ADIOS TO DANI VALLVERDU &… http://t.co/i8Nrg10DFr #tennis