THE Lawn Tennis Association are hopeful of confirming Judy Murray's appointment as the captain of the Great Britain Fed Cup team within the next 48 hours, Herald Sport understands.
Glaswegian Leon Smith, Andy Murray's first coach and the association's recently promoted head of men's and women's tennis, is keen to get his countrywoman on board and the Scottish stranglehold at the top of the British game should be announced imminently. "Nothing is finalised or signed in terms of contracts just yet," an LTA spokesperson said. "But discussions are at an advanced stage."
The post has been vacant since the summer, when Nigel Sears resigned from his joint role as captain and head of women's tennis at the LTA to coach former world No.1 Ana Ivanovic. Smith took over responsibility for the women's game in October but, with the Scot also the head of men's tennis and Davis Cup captain, he is understandably keen to bolster his team.
The contract on offer to Murray, a former national coach of Scotland, is also likely to include a wider role working with young players, with the LTA keen to put her experience to good use. The talks remain a work in progress but there is no hurry to tie up the deal given Britain's women are not in Fed Cup action until the first week of February.
Like the Davis Cup team, they are in Europe/Africa Zone Group I, and, with Elena Baltacha, Anne Keothavong, Heather Watson and Laura Robson all making significant progress during 2011, hopes are high they could soon reach the World Group. However, the regional group takes the form of a round-robin competition – being held in Eilat, Israel, next year – with only two of the 15 teams achieving promotion, and there is some stiff competition.
Murray's recent work with the LTA has centred around grassroots participation and improving facilities, while she also remains a valued member of Andy's team, particularly for her analysis of opponents.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article