Andy Murray will make his return to tennis as part of Jack Draper’s coaching team during the grass-court season after Draper’s decision to part ways with his coach Jamie Delgado.

“I am very grateful for everything Jamie Delgado has done for me over these past six months,” said Draper in a statement. “He is a world-class coach and a great man. In the interim, I will continue to be supported by the excellent team at the LTA, with the addition of Andy Murray, who will be supporting me throughout the grass-court season.”

Most British tennis insiders considered it only a matter of time before Murray coached Draper. After idolising him during his youth, Draper viewed the Scot as a mentor figure during the early years of his career and they eventually became good friends.

They are both also very familiar with how the other works, having trained together and competed alongside each other as Olympic and Davis Cup teammates. The pair played against each other once on the ATP tour, with Draper beating Murray at Indian Wells in 2023.

Having reached a career-high ranking of world No 4 last season, Draper has endured the most difficult 12 months of his career due to a series of significant injuries. A bone bruise to Draper’s left arm forced him off the tour for about seven months. The 24-year-old then sustained a knee injury in April at the Barcelona Open that has caused him to withdraw from the entire clay-court season, including the French Open. Draper’s career has been continuously held back due to injuries.

He is scheduled to return at the start of the grass-court season, a surface he struggled on last year despite his impressive results elsewhere. Draper has never gone past the second round at Wimbledon, while Murray is one of the greatest grass-court players of the 21st century, having won the men’s singles title in 2013 and 2016.

This will be Murray’s second coaching job since retiring from professional tennis in 2024. He enjoyed a highly publicised six-month stint with Novak Djokovic, his biggest rival during his playing career, in the first half of last year. Otherwise, he has spent a large part of his retirement playing golf.

Draper and Delgado, who also previously coached Murray, began their partnership last December while Draper recovered from his arm problem. The pair linked up at only four ATP tournaments this year due to Draper’s injuries.

Elsewhere, Jannik Sinner clinched his 31st consecutive Masters victory with a straightforward 6-2, 6-3 win over qualifier Andrea Pellegrino at the Italian Open, equalling the record Masters streak set by Djokovic. However, the seeds beneath Sinner continued to fall as Alexander Zverev became the latest to lose, squandering four match points before falling 1-6, 7-6(10), 6-0 to home favourite Luciano Darderi, the 20th seed, in the third round.

Sorana Cirstea, meanwhile, continued her fairytale run in Rome as the 36-year-old defeated Jelena Ostapenko 6-1, 7-6(0) to reach a clay-court WTA Masters semi-final for the first time in her career.