Murray Denies Any Rift With Mauresmo

Andy Murray has denied parting company with his former coach Amelie Mauresmo because the pair fell out.

The Scotsman was quizzed about the split at his news conference after he had won a five-set epic with Radek Stepanek in the first round of the French Open.

Murray became the first high-profile male player to hire a woman coach when he started working with Mauresmo in June 2014.

Interviews conducted by the two Grand Slam champions since the split was announced seemed to suggest their relationship had deteriorated before they parted ways.

But Murray insisted that was not the case, pointing instead to the limited amount of time they were able to spend working together. "Me and Amelie have a good relationship, we certainly didn't fall out," said Murray.

"The reason we stopped working together ... was the fact that we literally are spending hardly any time together in a three-month period right before major events coming up. And she was not able to help me during that period."

Murray won seven trophies under Mauresmo's guidance, including his first two titles on clay. However, the Frenchwoman has not been regularly on the circuit with Murray since giving birth to her son Aaron last August.

Mauresmo had indicated that the union ended because she felt she could not "take things further anymore" with Murray, before adding: "Andy is complex. On court, he can be opposite of what he is in life. It can be confusing."

But Murray clarified that their wires had simply got crossed.

"I did an interview before anything that Amelie had said had come out and the last two days ... I was supposedly hitting back at Amelie's comments and disagreeing with everything that she said and that we had a really tough break-up," explained Murray.

"That simply is not true. When we sat down in Madrid ... it was far from heated. We spoke very calmly.

"To say that the reason that we stopped working together is because of my behaviour on the court, that is not true. In Madrid when we spoke, we didn't discuss that one time."

Responding to Mauresmo's observation that he was a complex character, Murray admitted he still needs to try to curb his tendency to shout at his coaching team when things are not going well.

"On the court ... when I'm losing I get very frustrated. When I'm winning, obviously I'm happier," he said. "I don't know if that's complex or not. It's actually quite simple to me."