I GREW up in a part of Scotland where chances to play tennis were of the hen's teeth amount, and much the same applies in Scotland today.
It was the grey hard municipal courts that typified the local scene, and it was a middle class clientele who mostly attended there.
Scotland's grey weather isn't overtly tennis material but as Kevin Ferrie's article ("Opposite ends of tennis spectrum deliver same message: Young Scots need exposure", Herald Sport, July 2) indicates, compared with 20-plus years ago, tennis in Scotland today is, or more aptly should be an altogether different ball game. The sad fact is that it isn't. Municipal, town tennis courts lie dormant 10 months of the year and are effectively a waste of space.
In the past, such places as Fraserburgh here in the north-east, had an annual tournament on its hard grey courts that attracted competitors from up and down the land, England south and north and many parts of Scotland, and lasted an entire week. Some competitors combined the event with their summer holidays. There was also, to my knowledge, an active local league.
More typical was where I grew up and the only competitions in the local town tended to be cliquish social events more like office parties or colonials having their jolly weekends.
Today there is no excuse for not defying the weather and having indoor year-round tennis courts in most if not every sizeable town. As Kevin Ferrie's article highlights, it will indeed be pitiful if the international success of Andy Murray becomes mere nostalgia and statistics in Scotland's sporting records.
Ian Johnstone,
84 Forman Drive, Peterhead.
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