Andy Murray and Amelie Mauresmo had a 'strange' partnership, which 'failed' says Serena Williams's coach

Andy Murray's appointment of Amelie Mauresmo as coach in the past had dumbfounded Serena Williams coach Patrick Mouratoglou who has called it "strange" and a "failure". Mauresmo who is a former Wimbledon champion herself, coached the Scot for two years before Murray ended their partnership in May this year.

The Scot failed to win a Grand Slam under the tutelage of Mauresmo, which was seen as one of the reasons their association ended. The 29-year-old reunited with former coach Ivan Lendl earlier this month and went on to win a record fifth Aegon Championship title at the Queens Club.

"It's strange for a guy to hire a woman. Nothing bad about women, but it's strange because usually they don't know the men's game as well as the women's game, and it's a very macho world," he said, as quoted by DailyMail.

"It was very courageous of Andy to hire her. I'm not saying it was a mistake, but he didn't win anything major with Amelie. If Andy had won two or three Grand Slams with Amelie, we would see it differently."

Mouratoglou also spoke about disgraced tennis player Maria Sharapova's two-year ban for failing a drug test at the Australian Open in January. He said that the ban was fair and added that he did not feel sorry for the Russian.

"I don't feel sorry for someone who doesn't respect the rules. Whether she did it on purpose or not, it's a professional mistake. This is life and you have to pay for your mistakes," he explained.

His pupil Serena Williams will be next seen in action at the upcoming Wimbledon Championships 2016 which is scheduled to start next week. The world number one will go into the competition gunning for her 22<sup>nd Grand Slam title, which will see her level with Steffi Graf as the women with the most number of titles in the open era.