Murray turns to Lendl to manage mounting expectations

Djokovic's loss cranks up the pressure on Murray to win a second Wimbledon title, and the 29-year-old believes Lendl is the perfect calming influence as he seeks another success at SW19.

Andy Murray with coach Ivan Lendl.

Andy Murray is banking on coach Ivan Lendl to help him cope with the pressure of being favourite to win Wimbledon following the shock third-round exit of Novak Djokovic.

World number one Djokovic suffered a first grand-slam defeat in 31 matches after going down in four sets to Sam Querrey to end his run of four straight major triumphs. Most pundits had tipped a third slam final of 2016 between the Serbian and Murray, who was runner-up to Djokovic at the Australian and French Open.

Djokovic's loss cranks up the pressure on Murray to win a second Wimbledon title, and the 29-year-old believes Lendl, who he reunited with after Roland Garros, is the perfect calming influence as he seeks another success at SW19.

"Ivan Lendl is a great person to have on the team when expectations start to build around me because he's been through the same experience himself," Murray wrote in his blog for BBC Sport. "The year I won Wimbledon, I was seeded to meet Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the quarter-finals and Roger Federer or Rafa Nadal in the semi-finals, but they all went out early."

"I remember that made it hard in terms of everyone focusing on me from early in the tournament and I spoke with Ivan about it at the time, because it's an extra thing to deal with. The difference between this year and 2013 is those players were all in my section of the draw, and so their losses had quite a direct effect, whereas Novak Djokovic losing on Saturday won't have any bearing on me at all unless I reach the final."

"I couldn't help but notice the noise from the crowd when Novak's score flashed up on the Centre Court scoreboard, but I only thought about it for a few seconds. It doesn't guarantee anything. The players left in my section of the draw are still formidable."

"You've got Nick Kyrgios, who's beaten Rafa on Centre Court before; Feliciano Lopez, who's a very good grass-courter; Tsonga is one of the best grass-court players in the world; not many players want to play John Isner; Richard Gasquet's still in there and he made the semis last year."

"There are some pretty decent players left in my way, so I'm not getting carried away."