Sporting creativity is the key component being encouraged in the new #TEAMUP campaign that will identify Andy Murray’s doubles partner in what will otherwise be clan warfare at The Hydro next month.

Launched yesterday by the two-time Wimbledon men’s singles champion’s mother Judy and backed by sponsors SSE, #TEAMUP will be part of Andy Murray Live, the now annual tennis exhibition which will this year see Roger Federer, the man who has made history in replacing him as Wimbledon champion and claiming the title for a record eighth time, make his first ever appearance in Scotland. Its aim is to be as accessible as possible to tennis fans encouraging them to take part whether they have the right equipment or not and, indeed, the way the family matriarch described it, using a tennis racquet might be a bit too orthodox to have a chance of winning.

“It’s a keepie uppie competition which basically you can do with a tennis ball and a racquet or you can do with something else,” said Judy who typically used the launch as an opportunity to coach youngsters at Perth Tennis Club.

“If somebody wanted to be part of the competition and they didn’t have a tennis racquet you could do biscuit tin lid and ping pong ball for example. It’s basically a 10 second challenge encouraging people to be as creative as they can be with a tennisy actitivity or skill building tennis activity and to upload it onto social media.

“Whoever comes up with the most creative, fun way of doing keepie uppie within a 10 second clip - it’s that whole snap thing, things being very quick, the way people share nowadays – will have the chance to come to AM Live and actually play a doubles with Jamie and Andy and me on the showcourt. So it’s a way of encouraging more people to get involved, to have a chance to come along to see it, but it’s a real fun thing and hopefully will get more people engaged with tennis through it. It’s a very contemporary way of running a competition.”

She intends to be involved in the judging process and admitted that there will be a bonus from her point of view since she will shamelessly take the best ideas and incorporate them in future tennis roadshows, but for all that it is very much a fun approach to skill development, there is a very serious underlying message. Judy has been an ardent campaigner for Scottish sporting authorities to capitalise on her sons’ success by developing more and better tennis facilities and remains frustrated by the lack of progress, however she also sees huge benefits in being more resourceful and not just for her sport. In particular, arousing memories of the tales of Jinky Johnstone honing his globally renowned skills by playing with, ironically, a tennis ball, she believes that Scottish football would benefit from the same approach.

“Lots of the things I used to invent to play with the boys at home were largely ‘what have we got lying about? What can we create?’” she noted.

“Things like cereal box table tennis, so it’s just like the kitchen table, row of serious boxes, a couple of biscuit tin lids and a ping pong ball, so the only thing you really have to buy is the ping pong ball which would be 20p, but you can learn an incredible amount of hand skills, tracking, sending, receiving a ball etc, with something that’s largely fun. If the table’s being used for dinner you sit on the floor and do it, because if you take the legs out of it you have to use your hands more to get out of trouble.

“That’s why my kids are skilful, it genuinely is, because the more you can learn to control something in a small space the easier it then is to break it into a bigger space but with the skill. It’s like football. I always think that if we spent more time learning football skills in a small space you create more of the players with the silky skills that everybody enjoys watching, rather than play in a big space and you just hoof it.”

However she remains profoundly aware of the need to maintain awareness in the public consciousness by staging high class tennis in front of Scottish audiences in order at a time when, logistically, it is all but impossible for the Murray brothers to play in a full blown tournament in their homeland.

“One of the biggest challenges for us up here is that we don’t have a venue up here that would cope with a major tennis event. Most of our clubs are like this one in Perth, three or four courts and most of our indoor centres would just not have the capacity to host a major event, they are too small,” she noted.

The phrase ‘if you can see it you can be it’ having become something of a mantra for Judy, she believes it is vital that the opportunity provided by the drawing power of her champion sons has to be capitalised upon.

“It is important to share and put world class tennis in front of Scottish people because we do not have any other major events, unless we have Davis Cup ties,” she pointed out.

“We were fortunate with the Davis Cup because Great Britain had several home ties in a row, which was almost unheard of – maybe six or seven and several came to Glasgow which was fantastic. It let everyone see the appetite for it, because the atmosphere in the Emirates was something else.”

She recounts it as something of a surreal experience from the perspective of someone who grew up in a part of the world where tennis only registered on the wider consciousness for a fortnight every year when Wimbledon was being televised, yet who has played a major part in her coaching career, in transforming its status.

“I remember sitting at the 2015 Davis Cup semi-final against Australia and I watched the boys walk on for the doubles and the doubles was have to win because we were pretty sure Andy would win the singles either side of it. But it was have to win and it was Lleyton Hewitt and Sam Groth. I sat there and watched them come on together with Leon, who I started off coaching when he was 20. The noise was deafening,” she said.

“As a Scottish tennis person over so many years, and having gone to competitions with one man and his dog watching and one line in round-ups in papers, I sat there and thought; ‘it’s a semi-final of the Davis Cup in the east end of Glasgow, Scottish player and Scottish captain, crowds going mad,’’ and a year later we had (Andy Murray Live) because you realise you have to bring the excitement to your own people. It was a fantastic thing.”

A further opportunity for Scots to demonstrate their passion for top class tennis will now be provided in November, then, when the men respectively considered greatest ever Scottish sportsman and the greatest tennis player of all time are set to do battle, while every tennis lover now has the chance to show the imagination required to earn a place on court with them.