Murray denies ugly breakup with former coach Mauresmo

Britain´s Andy Murray celebrates after winning the Czech Republic´s Radek Stepanek during the men´s first round match at the Roland Garros 2016 French Tennis Open, Paris, France, May 24, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

PARIS - World No 2 Andy Murray denied Tuesday that his split with former coach Amelie Mauresmo had anything to do with his on-court behavior.

The Scot parted ways with the former Grand Slam winner of France just ahead of the premier clay-court major, with L'Equipe quoting Mauresmo at the weekend that Murray's difficulties in controlling his emotions on court made her frustrated with the future of the partnership.

L'Equip then published an interview with Murray in which he talked about the issue, although he told media at Tuesday's press conference at Roland Garros after his comeback victory over Radek Stepanek that he was not responding to Mauresmo's comments.

"I'm kind of willing to talk about this, providing that everyone's fair about it, because me and Amelie have a very good relationship, and I don't think it's fair to try to say otherwise," said the 29-year-old.

"I did an interview before the tournament, before anything that Amelie had said had come out. And the last two days was supposedly that I was hitting back at Amelie's comments and disagreeing with everything that she said and that we had a really tough breakup. That simply is not true," he added.

"When we sat down in Madrid, we had -- anyone who said it's heated is lying and was not there. It was far from heated. We spoke very calmly the whole time. And to say that the reason that we stopped working together is because of my behavior on the court, that is not true.

"In Madrid, when we spoke, we didn't discuss that one time. So that isn't true.

"For sure, when we were working together, we discussed many things on the court, and there was times when, like with all of my coaches, they said 'You need to concentrate more on the match. Stop directing your frustration at the box and being distracted from what's going on on the court.'

"But to say that that's why we stopped working together is untrue. Me and Amelie do have a good relationship. Obviously what's happened the last few days has been difficult, because I didn't have a chance to talk about it or respond or, you know, anything," said the second-seeded Scot.

Murray said although he had not spoken to Mauresmo, he had received a message from the former Grand Slam champion ahead of the tournament.

"I'm sure we'll see each other here at some stage," he added.

As Mauresmo said he's complex, Murray said: "When I'm losing I get very frustrated. When I'm winning, obviously I'm happier. I don't know if that's complex or not. It's actually quite simple, to me, anyway."