Roger Federer and Andy Murray have gone down as tennis greats, having both reached stunning heights during their careers.
Both Federer and Murray climbed to number one in the ATP rankings, although the former managed to outdo the latter elsewhere.
Federer clinched 20 Grand Slam titles and 103 ATP titles overall, while Murray retired with tallies of three and 46 respectively.
Intriguingly, recently Murray revealed he practiced with Federer early in his career, but the Swiss icon quickly put an end to that.
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Roger Federer didn’t want to show his weaknesses to Andy Murray
Tennis coach Patrick Mouratoglou, who once worked with Serena Williams, has now decided to provide his expert opinion on their situation.
Mouratoglou said on his Instagram: “Andy Murray didn’t understand why Roger stopped practising with him. I have an explanation.
“All those guys that are at the top of the game, they like to know the young coming up players, so that’s why they like to play with them at the start, when they know they cannot beat them yet, to see how good they are and see their weaknesses.
“Once they become really good, they don’t want to practice with them, because they don’t want to be in a situation where they start losing at practice, and they don’t want to show their own weaknesses and that’s the thing.
“I know that [Carlos] Alcaraz and [Jannik] Sinner are practicing together quite often, but it’s a different situation. None of the two guys have weaknesses. That’s the thing.”
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It’s certainly intriguing to hear Mouratoglou’s analysis of Alcaraz and Sinner, especially given that the coach helped Williams win 10 Grand Slam titles.
The two ATP Tour superstars have been a class above in recent years, sharing the last eight Grand Slam titles.
But they do have a long way to go to catch the Big Three of iconic figures Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.
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It was incidentally that Big Three that unfortunately for Murray played a crucial role in his lack of further success on the biggest stage.
The Scottish legend won three Grand Slam titles but lost a further eight finals; five to Djokovic and three to Federer.
Murray ended his career with an 11-14 win-loss record against Federer, with records of 7-17 against Nadal and 11-25 against Djokovic.
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