Judy Murray is smiling broadly but, really, she could be forgiven for saying: ‘To hell with it’.
All around her, girls from a host of different primary schools are listening intently as she talks through her new initiative, Learn to Lead.
It’s an innovative, yet simple concept, with P6 and P7 girls running lunchtime or after-school tennis clubs for girls aged 4-9 years old.
Designed to inspire leadership and empowerment, the move was borne out of Judy’s desire to keep girls playing sport.
With 1.3million teenage girls now dropping out of exercise altogether (according to research conducted by Women in Sport), it’s a timely manoeuvre.
That she is still fighting the good fight is remarkable. Judy is nothing if not tenacious and there is something within her that refuses to bow to failure.
Judy Murray poses proudly with sons Jamie and Andy, who became heroes to a generation of sports fans the world over
Murray says she will always be disappointed that her Park of Keir project to build on her sons’ legacy never came to fruition
Judy loves introducing children to sport but wonders where the nation’s next Andy and Jamie Murrays are coming from
This is reminiscent of her sons Andy and Jamie, who battled to victory after victory against the odds across the world.
Undoubtedly, it has been an emotional year for the entire Murray family. The demise of Judy’s Park of Keir project, in particular, was a massive blow. Construction was eventually pulled due to spiralling costs and ‘protracted discussions’ with authorities.
How does she feel about it now?
‘I won’t do it again,’ she says softly. ‘That was 11 years of my life, planning that. And money. I put a significant financial input into that and, at the end of the day, we had to pull the plug on it.
‘Really, it should never have been up to me to build a centre of national significance for Scotland.
‘When I started that project, I just wanted somewhere to work. I wish I’d just built a barn and worked in it myself.
‘It sort of grew arms and legs, because it was a partnership with the LTA and the Scottish Government through sportscotland.
‘They wanted a centre of national significance. So, of course, it grew in scale to meet their demands.’
The £20million facility, inspired by Andy and Jamie, was intended to provide affordable access to leisure for thousands of people of all ages and abilities – growing the sports of tennis, pickleball and padel by creating an accessible, community-focused centre.
It was to be run by Judy’s charitable trust, the Murray Play Foundation. Significant increases in costs, a lengthy and uncertain planning process, and protracted discussions with governing bodies eventually became too much – with a funding gap of more than £5m needing to be filled for the project to go ahead and no guarantee the next tranche of planning proposals would ever be approved.
The most memorable day in Scottish sporting history as Andy Murray wins the Wimbledon title in 2013
Judy with Andy in New York after his first Grand Slam success at the US Open in 2012
Jamie enjoyed his own US Open triumph with Bethanie Mattek-Sands in 2019
Scrapping it was hailed as a victory for campaigners who had rallied against building on the land near Dunblane but the inability to create a lasting legacy to Judy’s sons garnered widespread criticism within tennis.
On social media, Andy simply responded: ‘No surprise’, while his former coach Mark Petchey lamented ‘an opportunity missed’.
When John Swinney was asked by Mail Sport if he felt it was an embarrassment to Scotland there is no tangible legacy for Andy Murray – someone he had hailed as ‘Scotland’s greatest ever sportsman’ – the First Minister claimed the opportunity to do so was still very much there.
He said it ‘must be informed by Andy Murray and the Murray Play Foundation’ and insisted he would be keen to have an ‘open conversation’ about future plans.
Whether those discussions ever materialise is unclear, with Judy ruling herself out of another project of that ilk.
Andy’s retirement, meanwhile, leaves the clock ticking ever louder. Tennis membership in Scotland may be up but, at elite level, questions remain over the pathway for players.
‘I was working in Greece recently,’ says Judy. ‘They’ve had two top-ten players in Stefanos Tsitsipas and Maria Sakkari.
‘Greece was never a hotbed of tennis. It’s unbelievable what they’ve got now because their government and governing body got behind it and said: “Let’s strike while the iron is hot”.
‘There will likely be no Scots in the Wimbledon juniors this year. And that disappoints me as well, because we should have oodles of young kids playing at a good level off the back of Jamie and Andy.
‘To make it all work you need a lot of them at a young age. You can’t just hothouse one or two and hope that works. You need volume, otherwise they have to leave the country to find the right training programmes and coaches. I still find that very tough to swallow.’
Judy remains concerned by Scotland’s inability to capitalise on the moment.
The LTA say entries and wild cards for this year’s Wimbledon have not yet been decided so it is too early to tell how many Scots might be involved, while Tennis Scotland deny there’s a dearth of talent coming through the junior ranks.
While Judy concedes there has been some progress on providing indoor facilities, she insists more still needs to be done in under-served communities.
‘You still have huge gaps and big cities that have nothing – like Perth, Dundee, Inverness, and so on.
‘Even with the best of intentions, if you identified some potentially great talented kids in Inverness – who’s going to teach them? If you don’t have indoor facilities, people can’t earn a living from coaching tennis because you can’t coach all year round, the weather is too bad through the winter months. It will continue to disappoint me, the lack of progress.’
On a positive note, the rise of Scot Jacob Fearnley is something to be celebrated. The 23-year-old, says Judy, has made ‘huge, huge strides over the last ten months’ and is an ‘exciting’ talent.
Judy Murray remains concerned by Scotland’s inability to capitalise on the moment after Andy was crowned Wimbledon champion
Murray is still doing everything she can to teach kids sport but is not sure if that is shared in the Scottish schools curriculum
Judy Murray as a young parent with the two sons, Jamie and Andy, she helped become global superstars in tennis
Currently world No 49 he burst on to the scene at Wimbledon last year, recording his first major win over Alejandro Moro Canas before losing in four sets to Novak Djokovic in the second round.
‘He went to an American university,’ says Judy. ‘And that gave him the opportunity to grow up and grow out. It gave him a great education, but it also gave him great training and competitive opportunities in a team environment, which is brilliant.
‘It’s very, very hard to come out of school and go straight on to the tour and be successful. So, actually, it was a perfect training ground for him.
‘Prior to that, he was at Merchiston School, which has three indoor courts in Edinburgh and a tennis academy which does great things on three indoor courts. These were his two training grounds and, between them, they did an amazing job.
‘He’s got a rocket of a forehand, and he’s just improving week in, week out. He’s taking the experiences of the wins and the losses, and he’s learning from them. It’s exciting to see.
‘The other one who did well in the juniors last year was Charlie Robertson. He made top 10 in the ITF (International Tennis Federation) end of year rankings, which was good, and is now at an American university as well.’
And what’s next for Judy? It’s difficult to see her ever giving in, despite all the hurdles she has faced.
‘I might still build a barn,’ she laughs. ‘But it will be one barn, and it will be my barn.’
