De Witt to Coach Sir Andy Murray — at Least This Week — While Delgado Joins Shapovalov’s Team

By Ricky Dimon

There will be a new coach in Andy Murray’s corner — at least at the Mubadala World Tennis Championship later this week.

Longtime ATP coach Jan De Witt will join Team Murray with a trial run at the Abu Dhabi exhibition before it is determined if the German will stay on in a full-time capacity during the 2022 campaign. With Jamie Delgado — Murray’s former coach — joining Denis Shapovalov, the 34-year-old Scot is most definitely on the lookout for someone to come in and stay.

De Witt has previously coached Gilles Simon, Viktor Troicki, Tatsuma Ito, and Nikoloz Basilashvili.

Delgado started coaching Murray in May of 2016 following a stint with Gilles Muller. The 44-year-old Brit helped his charge win Wimbledon that summer and finish the year ranked No. 1 in the world — after defeating Novak Djokovic in a winner-take-all Nitto ATP Finals championship match.

Meanwhile, Mikhail Youzhny’s status with Shapovalov is unclear now that Delgado is on board.

On the women’s side, Emma Raducanu made her highly anticipated decision last month by hiring Torben Beltz. The 44-year-old German is most well known for guiding Angelique Kerber to No. 1 in the world, complete with Grand Slam titles at the Australian Open and U.S. Open (both in 2016).

“It’s obviously a great privilege to be working with such an experienced coach,” said Raducanu. “I’m definitely very excited to work with him throughout the pre-season and into next year. Things are looking up and very positive, excited about the work that is to come.

“I think that experience definitely helps with someone as inexperienced as me. He can help guide me through, which I feel really confident about. Also, he’s a really positive, cheerful guy who brings great energy to the team; I think that’s also important when you’re traveling on the road for quite a long time on the tour.”

The reigning U.S. Open champion was supposed to play an exhibition match in Abu Dhabi against Belinda Bencic on Thursday, but she was forced out by a positive Covid-19 test earlier this week.

Ricky contributes to10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand. You can follow him on twitter at @Dimonator.