Andy Murray's top pick for a coach is still Ivan Lendl, but he’s aware of the difficulties of getting former champions to commit to full-time coaching.
In a Q&A session with ticket holders in Rome, Murray was asked who he would like his next coach to be.
“I loved working with Ivan Lendl,” he said. “I had great results with him. So yeah, I would obviously love to work with Ivan. But the time is always difficult with the ex-players."
Speaking to the *BBC*, he added that he’s "not against the idea at all."
"I'd certainly consider it,” he said. “I had fantastic results working with Ivan. Both of us, I think, enjoyed it enough to at least consider that. Whether or not it's something that could work, I'm not sure."
At his press conference in Rome, Murray went into more detail about the reluctance of former players to spend a lot of weeks on tour. He cited Carlos Moya and Milos Raonic, as well as Michael Chang and Kei Nishikori, as examples.
“You know, a lot of the examples like that—Moya with Raonic or Chang with Nishikori—they aren't at every single event, I think, because they don't want to do it,” he said.
Both Lendl and Amelie Mauresmo—Murray and Mauresmo parted ways earlier this week—committed only to working part-time with Murray, and they eventually stopped due to travel and scheduling demands. Murray also brought on Jonas Bjorkman as an assistant coach in 2015, but he decided not to extend that partnership this season.
He is currently working with former British player Jamie Delgado, and says he’s happy to have a full-time coach even though it’s not a big game.
"I think that's why, for me, having Jamie Delgado with me—who is able to commit 35, 40 weeks of the year—is very important," Murray said. "I do think it's important to have someone in your team that is willing to commit for that amount of time, and have that consistency throughout the whole of the year is very important.
"So I'm glad I've got that now, which I didn't [have] last year with Jonas and Amelie. You know, they were splitting the time. So I'm happy I have that consistency now and, you know, maybe try and find someone to add to that now."
The two-time Grand Slam champion has indicated that he will not bring in anyone during the clay-court season, but will begin searching.
"It's something that I will speak to my team about over the next few weeks and try and, you know, find something that works,” he said. “Again, I want it to work, you know, long-term. So I will take that into consideration as well.”
Murray reached the final in Madrid last week, but lost to world No. 1 Novak Djokovic.