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Andy Murray answers questions during a media availability at the Indian Wells ATP tournament - Source: Reuters
World number four Andy Murray has called for a more uniform coaching strategy at junior level in the wake of Britain's Davis Cup defeat at the hands of Lithuania.
While the British number one did not speculate on whether team captain John Lloyd should be replaced, he said it was vital the players should have some input on future candidates.
Above all, Murray pleaded for a more constructive approach by the British media following the team's humiliating 3-2 loss in Vilnius on Sunday in a Europe/Africa Zone group II first round match. It was their fifth successive defeat in Davis Cup ties.
"Everyone involved is obviously disappointed," Murray told reporters on Friday while preparing for the Indian Wells ATP tournament.
"It wasn't one of British tennis's best days but I think the most important thing now is that we're obviously at a pretty low point and I'm fed up reading just negative stuff all the time, the constant bashing.
"There needs to be some more constructive things said, people actually coming forward with ideas of what you can do to improve, how we can get better as a nation."
Murray, who did not play against Lithuania, said it was up to the Lawn Tennis Association to decide whether Lloyd stayed.
"It's a difficult one because John, at the start, won four or five times in a row and got us into the World Group which hadn't been done in a long time," Murray added.
"But if John does lose his job, I would like to think the players ... should have a strong say on who they think should come in.
"In this situation that we are in just now, it's very important that the players are very comfortable with who the captain is."
Murray, who honed most of his tennis skills as a junior in Spain, felt the only way forward for British tennis was to implement a unified coaching strategy nationwide.
"We need to have a system in place where all the coaches are teaching the same way," he said. "We can't have like 10 different nations having their input into how the kids play tennis.
"And there needs to be passion. We need to have people coaching the young kids who love British tennis and love their country, they can teach them hard work and passion.
"Right now, it's difficult because of the National Tennis Centre. All the best young British players, when they get to 15, 16, they go train at the National Tennis Centre. Not every single one but 90 percent of them.
"If I am a young British coach and I have done a great job with a junior and when they get to 16 they get taken away from me, I don't want to be a coach any more," Murray added.
"It's like: 'What's the point?' You don't get to work with the kid that you brought up and that you've trained."
