Stats life for Andy Murray's mate Andrew Kennaugh

Andrew Kennaugh, Murray's long-time junior doubles partner, has taken a different path since their days travelling together as aspiring professionals and will be on Centre Court next week, logging match statistics for IBM.

Degree of success: Kennaugh is foregoing his trophywinning days to read economics

He and Murray were the only two British teenagers at the Sanchez-Casal Academy in Barcelona and they were a regular doubles team who reached the quarter finals of the French Open boys' event.

But while Murray has been fine-tuning his game for Wimbledon this week, his old friend has been doing a physics A level with the intention of gaining a grade good enough to get him into Bristol to read economics.

When Murray swiftly headed towards the world's top 20, Kennaugh stuck around the 700s, suffered an injury and decided to pursue his academic ambitions instead.

'I'll be concentrating on logging the scores but I'll be watching him at the same time and really hoping he does well,' said Kennaugh, 21, who lives in Weybridge, Surrey. 'After all, I probably saw Andy more than my own family between 14 and 17. I don't see much of him now but we were always good friends and we needed to be, given how much time we spent together.'

Theirs was a life of shared dreams but Kennaugh always knew who was more likely to make it.

'I was at the academy in Spain for eight months off and on and it was a great experience, although you get a lot more attention there if you are in the top 10 students. Andy was in it but I was in the group below.

'It was pretty obvious how much talent he had. He was a nightmare to play against because he used so many clever tactics, which is unusual at junior level, and it would drive the other boys nuts playing against him, including me.

'You can still see it now, in the way that even the top players don't enjoy him counter-punching and mixing the play up.'

Kennaugh is aware that Murray is yet to win over the British public. From his knowledge of the lone home hope, he believes he is misunderstood.

'I can see where people are coming from because he doesn't always look too enthusiastic. You have got to know him quite well to know what a good guy he is away from the court, where he is trying everything to win.

'It's not easy to describe his humour but he's always cracking good jokes and making funny observations with this completely straight face.

'We had a lot of fun but one thing about him is that he is very competitive, even when we used to play cards or have keepy-uppy competitions to pass the time.

'Arguments would often flare between us and he'd accuse me of cheating, but the great thing was it would be forgotten in a couple of minutes. He wanted to win at everything.

'Another thing I like about him is that he has never really changed in all the time I've known him.'

Often when they played doubles, Murray would be playing twice a day because he was still in the singles while Kennaugh had been knocked out, although he was good enough to make the last 16 of the French Open junior singles and be regarded as one of Britain's best prospects.

'I gave it a decent try as a professional and got into the top 700 but it is a level which quite a few players struggle to get past and that was the case with me,' said Kennaugh.

'I didn't feel I was improving sufficiently and was already doing a selftaught A level while I was on the road.

'I set myself the target of getting into the top 500 by the end of last year but got a knee injury and I could see it just wasn't happening for me.

'I still love the game and play some professional club league tennis in France to make a bit of money, but unless I struggle with the academic side of university I doubt I'll try going back to being a full-time player.'.