BRAD Gilbert, Andy Murray's former coach, feels that the resurgence in form currently being experienced by Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal can only inspire the Scot and his historic rival Novak Djokovic to rediscover their own best tennis.

While Federer is resting up for the grass court season and absent from the French Open, which gets under way this Sunday at Roland Garros, Nadal - the finest clay court player of his generation - goes into the event heavily favoured to win La Decima, a record tenth title at this venue. Andy Murray - who got up close and personal with Olympic Judo champion Teddy Riner yesterday at La Defense - may still be World No 1, but few expect him to get to grips with this competition, an event where he has nonetheless reached the last four in each of the last three years, and reached the final 12 months previously. The reason for this is a 2017 win rate of 16 wins and seven defeats - giving him a percentage which stands at just 70.8%, the lowest figure of any player who has started a calendar year as world No. 1 since Pete Sampras back in 1999.

There are perhaps numerous reasons for this loss of form - not least an elbow issue and shingles which appears to have particularly afflicted his serve - but Gilbert is adamant that that the Scot's dip in productivity will be only temporary and Paris is as good a place as any for his form to turn around. Not only will he have Ivan Lendl back in his coaching group, his historic rival Djokovic arrives in Paris with Andre Agassi, one of his own idols, as his new superstar coach.

"I never had shingles, but I know that can be a problem," said Gilbert, also a former coach of Agassi's, who is employed as a pundit for US broadcasters ESPN. "I'll give you a couple numbers I know about Murray. I think the struggles this whole year are on his serve. Last year he held at a career-high 85% of the time. This year it's 78% - that's 7% less, which is huge. He was winning 54% of his second-serve points last year, but it's only 50% this year.

"Maybe the biggest one was he was saving 66% of his break points last year, and it's 55% this year. So if you look at all of his serve stats, they're way down. They haven't been this low since 2006. That's definitely a bit of an issue.

"But Lendl will be onboard this week, the practice week. He obviously needs to get some momentum. I think of all these slams as two parts: the first part is get through the first week, then all of a sudden get through the first week and maybe you can get back and make a deep run."

Aside from an early season win in Dubai, this has been a barren year for the Scot, who crashed out of Australia at the last 16 stage to Mischa Zverev. While a run to the semi finals in Rome, eventually losing to Dominic Thiem was encouraging, back-to-back defeats to Borna Coric and Fabio Fognini were less so.

"Obviously he hasn't played his normal standard in the big tournaments," said Gilbert. "He hasn't made a quarter finals yet of any Masters 1000 or Australia. He was dictating play a lot more last year on clay, especially with the forehand, playing far more offensive minded. But just like I said about the equity you build up when you win the matches, the belief now in the locker room for the first time is that while Murray used to own a lot of guys, when you start losing a little bit, guys feel like they have some belief.

"But I still think at 30, that he's a young 30," the American added. "He has plenty of time to turn it around. I never saw this bit of a bad patch coming.

"But knowing Andy as well as I do, I know one thing. He's not a satisfied guy. He's not materialistic. He loves the fight. He's not about the show and the bling. He loves the guts and working hard. Whether or not the shingles had a little more effect than people thought, or it was a little bit of dip in form, or he is tired. But I do think with the resurgence of Federer and Rafa, I think that will only inspire Novak and Andy. Okay, he'll think these guys are older than me. They're back in the mix like it was from '06 to '08 all the way through '12, '13, when Djokovic and Murray were chasing them. Now it's back to those guys chasing them again. I think this will inspire Andy to put a little fuel to the fire. Thirty is the new 25."