Jamie's best yet to come, insists coach

Louis Cayer is widely acknowledged within tennis as the leading expert on doubles play, and he was quietly in the background as Jamie made the third round of the men's event with Eric Butorac and triumphed in the mixed alongside Jelena Jankovic.

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The Canadian was recruited as part of the Lawn Tennis Association's drive to employ the best coaches, and Sunday's title was the highest-profile dividend on their investment to date.

Murray's doubles ranking yesterday went up to a career-best 29 — brother Andy went down to 13 in singles after losing last year's Wimbledon points — and Cayer believes there is much more to come from Jamie.

"He is still only 21 and has not been around long, so there is much more he can improve on," Cayer said. "If you look at the age of the best doubles players they are mostly older and probably on a plateau, but he is not.

"Technically, he is a big lefty with a good serve, he has good hands and he is prepared to work hard and learn. What really impresses me is the way he is able to play in important matches, such as when he has to go out on Centre Court.

"He plays well under pressure and you have to remember that this year, having not done that much before in his career, he has played in five finals and won them all, which tells you he knows how to peak in his performance."

Cayer, who coached one of last year's mixed doubles winners, Israel's Andy Ram, believes the keys to success in the mixed event, where partners have often played little together, are fairly simple.

Given that the woman has the ball played to her the most by the opposition his advice is not entirely surprising.

"The first rule is to find your best partner, and he did that with Jelena, and have lots of positive energy on court, basically keep the lady happy," he said.

That much was evident, and the swathe of media interviews Murray woke up to yesterday after attending the champions' dinner at the Savoy was testament to the latent interest in doubles.

It is an often-neglected area of the game although it is the code of choice for most social tennis players and often provides a better spectacle than singles with its complex strategies.

This is Cayer's speciality when working with Murray and his American partner in the men's, Butorac.

"When he plays with Eric they each have set patterns to follow in four situations: when Jamie is serving or returning and when Eric is serving or returning.

"You usually have only about 0.4 seconds to make decisions, so we spend a lot of time drilling them to make their positioning and choice of shot automatic.

"Jamie has become a good poacher at the net, but only after hard work. For some time he was uncomfortable with the amount of times he was getting hit there."

Murray hopes to team up again with the women's world No 3 at the U.S. Open but will understand if he is spurned.

He said: "Jelena reached the semis there last year and we played five three-setters at Wimbledon, so she may want to conserve her energy. We will have to see.

"My agent put the word around that I was looking for a mixed partner and, luckily, I turned up one morning at the All England Club at the same time as Jelena and asked her, and she said yes.

"We had a great chemistry together and a lot of fun, which helped. A Grand Slam title is a Grand Slam title, and it is great for my career that I have shown myself I can perform on a stage that big."

He nonetheless has no plans to embark on a singles career: "It would be hard to throw this away, not play in the world's biggest tournaments and start from scratch in singles, so it probably won't happen.

"I think my game is more suited to doubles. I've got a good instinct of where I need to be positioned (a trait shared by Andy in singles) and, while my serve would work well in singles, rallying from the baseline is not one of my strengths."

In a couple of days Jamie heads to California for next week's doubles at the Los Angeles Open, and he might be joined there by his brother if Andy gets the go-ahead to play from his wrist specialist.