Andy Murray suggests change he made to copy Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer is behind his struggles

Andy Murray looks on at the Australian Open 2024

Andy Murray has revealed he made a significant change to his equipment ahead of the 2024 season to copy Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer and suggested this could explain his poor form.

The three-time Grand Slam champion divulged that he has swapped the racket stringing set-up he had used for his entire professional career to mirror that of Djokovic and Federer.

Murray lost his first four matches of 2024 in a brutal start to the season, but he has found some form at tournaments in Doha and Dubai in the past two weeks.

The 36-year-old earned his first win of the year against Alexandre Muller in Doha last week, before losing to eventual finalist Jakub Mensik in a final set tiebreak in the second round.

At this week’s Dubai Championships, Murray overcame Denis Shapovalov 4-6, 7-6(5), 6-3 in the opening round on Monday to earn his best victory of the season. The world No 67 will face either Gael Monfils or Ugo Humbert in the second round of the ATP 500 tournament.

Speaking in an interview at the tournament in Dubai, Murray outlined the change he made to his strings in the off-season and admitted he considered going back to his old set-up before Doha.

“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.”