Queen's Club Betting: Mauresmo can make an instant impact for Murray

That winning feeling: Murray with the Wimbledon trophy last year

Andy Murray's choice of new coach Amelie Mauresmo has stunned the tennis world but Ralph Ellis says the Wimbledon champion might just have made another inspired decision...

When it comes to hiring and firing head coaches, Andy Murray is not quite up there with Roman Abramovich, but he's getting damn close.

Amelie Mauresmo starts work this week as the seventh to take responsibility for improving the game of the reigning Wimbledon champion in eight years since he turned professional in 2006 (if you count Murray as being his own head coach during 2011 in between sacking Alex Corretja and appointing Ivan Lendl). In the same time Chelsea's multi billionaire owner has got through nine of them.

We don't know much about Abramovich's personality. He hides himself away from public gaze while Murray is constantly required to face the media. But what we can be sure of is that both of them are fired by the same ruthless determination to achieve success.

In his early days when he was hasty in rejecting first Mark Petchey then Brad Gilbert, it seemed that Murray didn't want to listen to what he was being told. Since then, there has been a definite change and he is seeking quality information. It worked with Lendl. There's no reason to think it won't work with the woman who had two Grand Slams to her own name as a player, and then coached Marion Bartoli to come out of virtually nowhere and lift the Wimbledon crown last summer.

Mauresmo's appointment comes very much from left field, inviting a woman into the men's game. The sniggering has already started, with Ernests Gulbis joking that he's waiting for Maria Sharapova to retire so he can hire the best looking coach.

But if you've listened to Mauresmo's media work you'll know her analysis of the men's game can be incisive and insightful. She knows what she is talking about, and when it comes to finding a few small tweaks to Murray's game will have as much to offer as any man.

The two of them should get off to a winning start this week. After a good performance in Paris where he showed he's returning to full fitness, he should be odds-on to retain the Aegon Championship at Queen's club, rather than his current price of 2.56/4.

And if you can get something near to 1.51/2 to open up his defence tomorrow by beating Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu in straight sets, that also looks a winner.

Murray's decision to become the first leading male player to appoint a female coach may be controversial, especially as heads into a crucial few weeks not favourite at 4.94/1 to defend his prized Wimbledon trophy. But then so was his choice of Lendl. At the time the former world number one had been out of the game on a day to day basis for years. But the Scot recognised what he could bring, and it worked in spades.

Murray might be catching up with Abramovich when it comes to hiring and firing, but then maybe he has looked at the trophy haul at Stamford Bridge during the last eight years. They both recognise the same thing: a sportsman's career is too short to wait too long.