Murray's New sponsor?

Time for changeAndy Murray's long-standing partnership with his clothing sponsor Adidas is unlikely to be renewed at the end of the season, according to sources within the equipment industry, as the Scot goes in search of one last big kit deal to cover the final five years of his career.

Murray, who beat Jerzy Janowicz yesterday in his first match at the China Open, will finish with close to £15 million – including performance-related bonuses – from the five-year contract with Adidas that is due to end in December.

For their next move, though, it seems that Murray’s agents are ¬eyeing niche brands that would base their strategy around him – and which might even offer him equity in the company, as the American nutrition specialists Fuse Science did last year. The example of Tomas Berdych, the Czech player who broke away from the traditional tennis labels to join high-street retailer H&M, could turn out to be a precedent.

There is only a month to go before the deal will have to be struck, which adds another layer to the scrutiny surrounding Murray as he scraps for points at the end of a disappointing season. His struggle to reach the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals – a task which would have become even more difficult had he not turned around a one-set deficit against Janowicz yesterday – takes on extra significance when you consider that failure would weaken his brand at this critical moment.

Murray’s management company, 77, has not given up on the idea of staying in the tennis milieu. But Nike is unlikely to bite: it insists that its players wear no other advertising, and it is only three months since Murray signed a three-year, £4.5 million deal to have Standard Life’s name branded on his right shoulder.

As for Adidas, it seems unwilling to raise its offer this time around. Its new head, the American Eric Liedtke, is all too aware that tennis sales have been falling in the UK despite Murray’s endorsement.

The one thing that could change their minds as the deadline approaches is that Adidas – which values the UK market and has traditionally supported emerging British players through their junior years – could soon be lacking any high-profile seniors if it lets Murray go.

The company recently backed out of an expensive deal with Laura Robson, understood to be worth $1 million a year, allowing Nike to move in at a fraction of the sum when she sustained her season-spoiling wrist injury. Meanwhile representatives for Kyle Edmund, the 19-year-old who promises to be Britain’s next top-100 player, are said to be asking for $250,000 a year to renew his Adidas contract.

On the court in Beijing, Murray showed yesterday why he remains a valuable asset even if his results this year have been patchy. Coming off his first title of the year, which he won after a lengthy battle with Tommy Robredo in Shenzhen on Sunday, he had to fly 1500 miles across China and then go straight out for a difficult opening match against Janowicz.

It is perhaps understandable that his legs were heavy in the opening set, and the Scot was broken three times in succession at the start of the match. But once he warmed up to operating temperature, he was able to fight back from a disappointing first-set tie-break – in which he allowed a 4-1 lead to become a 9-11 deficit – to win in reasonably comfortable style: 6-7, 6-4, 6-2.

Murray’s next opponent, Pablo Cuevas, is a Uruguayan who is clearly at his most comfortable on clay, having won two ATP titles and two Challengers on the red stuff this year.

Meanwhile, Rafael Nadal – whose kit deal with Nike will not be changing any time soon – made his comeback in Beijing after three months out with a wrist injury. There was little sign of rust as the Spaniard struck his forehand with withering pace and accuracy on the way to a crushing 6-4, 6-0 victory against Richard Gasquet of France.

Back at home, the Aegon Champion¬ships at Queen’s Club will have a new tournament director for the third year in a row after Ross Hutchins – the recently retired doubles specialist and survivor of Hodgkin’s lymphoma – was recruited by the ATP to run its player relations department.

Hutchins spent a season as tournament director at Queen’s Club last year after Chris Kermode, the previous incumbent, was appointed as the ATP’s executive chairman. But now he will give way to Stephen Farrow, a lawyer who has long been a strong guiding hand behind the event. “Ross is well respected in the locker room and fully aware of the challenges and opportunities we face,” Kermode said yesterday in a statement.