Andy Murray believes tennis punditry needs a major shake-up, but he won’t be getting involved anytime soon. The former world No. 1’s comments come after All England Club bosses reportedly shared their wish to see the BBC revamp their Wimbledon coverage, which has become “out of touch”.
Several broadcasters hold the rights to different tournaments in the UK. The BBC is the home broadcaster of Wimbledon, while the Australian Open and French Open air on TNT Sports. Sky Sports has rights for the US Open and the year-round ATP and WTA Tour events.
Murray himself had a brief commentary stint with the BBC during Wimbledon in 2018, when he was sidelined while recovering from hip surgery. But after spending around five hours in the booth, calling Rafael Nadal’s quarter-final victory over Juan Martin del Potro, he realised it might not be the right post-playing career for him.
“The match was unbelievable – Nadal versus Del Potro, it was like four and a half hours of amazing tennis. But the commentary box was tiny, it was a long time to be in there. I actually didn’t enjoy it that much, to be honest,” he later said.
Murray now seems to have changed his mind and wouldn’t rule out a possible punditry career in the future. For now, the three-time Grand Slam champion believes that tennis coverage isn’t always done right and must be improved.
The former world No. 1 told The Athletic: “My feeling is that punditry in general, particularly when you have a name within the sport, is quite easy. There are some people that are very good at it.
“Jim Courier and Andy Roddick were great at the game, but also love the game and are very well researched and speak really, really well and are very passionate about it. And do the job extremely well. They’re not just turning up because they’re getting paid and just throwing out random comments, having not really watched the players and not really thinking much about what they’re saying.
“So it can be done extremely well, but I don’t think that’s always the case. And I think tennis needs to sort of improve the way that they do punditry but it’s not something that right now I’m massively into doing. I wouldn’t rule out doing it in the future, but I don’t really want to do it right now.”
Murray isn’t the only one who feels that way. According to The Times, Wimbledon bosses want the BBC to make major changes to their coverage, finding innovative ways to showcase the tournament. An industry insider said: “John McEnroe is great — although he can split opinion — but some of the other presenters and pundits at Wimbledon seem out of touch and not really up to date with a lot of the players. There is obviously a balance to be struck to cater for those who like the traditional aspect of the BBC’s Wimbledon coverage, but it definitely needs to look at what is happening in other tennis coverage.”