Tennis: Murray reveals her grand designs for Scottish game

JUDY MURRAY believes the success of her son, Andy, in winning Olympic and US Open singles titles could be just the start for Scottish tennis.

Speaking at Craiglockhart, where she and Andy demonstrated her innovative Set4Sport programme to get youngsters playing, Judy also reflected on the strides being made at junior level by Scots.

Referring to Ali Collins, Anastasia Mikheeva, Maia Lumsden and Anna Brogan, she said: “We have a very strong pack of girls who are the best in Britain for those born in 2000, 1999, 1998 and 1997. Anything is possible but it is about creating the right opportunity.

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“My bugbear still is when they get to 14, 15 or 16 they really run out of the environment required to progress further. They need a variety of people to play with. They can do the skill development up here but when they need the sparring environment and the weather and different surfaces we haven’t got it. We need to find that link but we also need to make sure we have funding to allow them to go on to that next phase and it does not suddenly become a huge onus on parents.”

Murray dreams of establishing an indoor facility in Scotland which would include outdoor hard courts like the ones the four Grand Slam events are played on.

“I’m thinking I might go smaller in terms of four indoor courts and a bigger outreach programme,” she said.

“I don’t want to build an exclusive club to make money out of.”

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