Judy Murray is awarded an OBE in 2017
Andy Murray’s mother has admitted she often gets herself into trouble for speaking up for women’s rights and equality, as she called for changes to be made to tennis’ ‘elitism’ problem. Judy Murray, who has been a passionate supporter of her two sons throughout their respective tennis careers, is delighted to see more female tennis coaches making their way into the game – but thinks high costs are making it difficult for parents to support their children to play the game.
The 64-year-old coached Andy, 36, and Jamie, 37, before following them all over the world as they participated in various tournaments. While Andy has enjoyed his own period of domination of the men’s singles game, winning three Grand Slam titles, Jamie has been a successful doubles’ player over the past two decades.
She has campaigned for more female coaches to try coaching like she did and insists she is not afraid to stir the point if it means getting her point across – especially if it means improving conditions for female workers.
“Those of you who know me know that I like to raise awareness of certain things and often get myself into trouble doing so, particularly on the female side and the need for more women in the workforce, the need for more equality of opportunity in the sporting world in general,” Ms Murray said, as per The Independent. “But the thing of having more female coaches for me, that was a big thing.”
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Ms Murray, speaking at the Henley Literary Festival after the release of her novel The Wild Card – which looks at the ‘Haves’ and ‘Have-nots’ in the tennis world – has also been candid in her assessment of the spiralling costs in grassroots tennis.
When reflecting on their tennis education as teenagers, she has spoken about her regret in sending Jamie down to Cambridge to play tennis, as he would return to Scotland six months. And Judy recognises that without a ‘huge’ effort from parents, taking kids to their tennis games across the country, paying for lessons and equipment is a much more difficult job than if they were to play in team sports.
She added: “The thing of the ‘Haves’ and ‘Have-nots’, that’s one of the things that I’ve always hated about tennis – the elitist image that it has of being difficult to do, difficult to access and expensive.
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“I’m very aware that when you start to progress through tennis, it is very, very expensive,” she added. “Because when you outgrow your own catchment area – for us, our catchment area of Scotland, you have to travel down south – the costs are huge. The time commitment is huge. And not everybody can afford to do that with their kids.
“In an individual sport, the onus is very much on the parents to make it all happen. If my kids had been great at rugby or football or cricket, they’d have been signed up by the club and the club would have taken care of the fixtures, of the kit and the training.
“They’d have been paid a salary, paid bonuses and I would have been completely anonymous in the background, driving the car maybe once in a while. But in something like tennis and I guess golf, the parents had to make it all happen.”
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