Andy Murray's Equipment Shift: Seeking Success by Emulating Tennis Greats

Andy Murray has recently disclosed that he made a significant alteration to his equipment prior to the start of the 2024 season, seeking to emulate the strategies employed by Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer.

This change, he believes, may have contributed to his underwhelming performance thus far.

The three-time Grand Slam champion shared that he has transitioned from the racket stringing arrangement he had used throughout his professional career to one that is akin to Djokovic's and Federer's.

The 36-year-old experienced a challenging commencement to the season, suffering losses in his initial four matches.

However, he has demonstrated an improvement in form over the past two weeks, particularly at the Doha and Dubai tournaments.

In Doha, he secured his first win of the year against Alexandre Muller but was narrowly defeated by Jakub Mensik in the second round.

His performance at the Dubai Championships has been more promising, highlighted by a victory over Denis Shapovalov in the opening round.

Murray prevailed over Shapovalov with a score of 4-6, 7-6(5), 6-3, marking his most notable win of the season thus far.

Currently ranked 67th in the world, he is set to face either Gael Monfils or Ugo Humbert in the second round of the ATP 500 tournament.

In an interview during the Dubai tournament, Murray elaborated on the change he made to his stringing setup during the off-season.

He also admitted to contemplating a return to his previous setup before the Doha tournament.

“I’ve always played with natural gut in the cross-strings of my racket. And in the off-season, I changed the main strings of my racket, which is a set-up Novak uses and Federer used,” the former world No 1 explained.

“It probably just gives a little bit easier depth to the ball. The ball comes off the racket [at a] slightly higher angle than when I’ve played with it the other way and I really like it.

“But it’s obviously different when you go on the match court because I’ve used the other string for it’s about 20 years. So then you go into matches and you start playing and you doubt things a little bit naturally and then you’re not winning matches.

“And I was thinking about going back before Doha but decided to stick with it. And I’m sure as the season goes on I’ll feel a little bit more comfortable with it. But I feel like it was the right thing for my game and the stage of my career that I’m at.”