THE wee boy in a Celtic strip fancied a go at tennis so he strolled up to a park in Ruchazie, picked up a plastic racket and engaged in a rally with a former Scottish internationalist.

It finished after 67 strokes. All volleys. The game was played over a small fence and the ball was not allowed to bounce on grass that was not quite as manicured as that of a certain spot in SW19.

"His name was Jamie and he was seven or eight. He'd never played tennis before. The kid was just unbelievably co-ordinated," said Judy Murray, his opponent, who has produced two Wimbledon title winners.

It is a long road from a non-bounce game in the East End of Glasgow to Wimbledon but young Jamie will have a difficulty making the first step. "There wasn't a court for 10 miles and these children don't necessarily have a car or money so how are those kids going to play? There were pieces of rope between sticks and things like that, because there are no tennis courts there," said Murray, who was at Hampden yesterday to make the draw for the William Hill Scottish Cup with her father, Roy Erskine.

Murray travels the parks, playgrounds and bye-ways of Scotland and beyond with plastic rackets, fences and other paraphernalia that make up an initiative called Set4Sport but could be more graphically described as Get Kids Off Couches And Into Playing.

"I have no desire to produce another Andy - none whatsoever," said Murray whose planned tennis and golf centre will try to broaden the base of the sport rather than just produce elite players. I want to leave a strong legacy behind because we can't capitalise on the role model because our grassroots is so weak. My centre will predominantly be grassroots focused."

The aim is to improve the participation of the sport rather than try to conjure up another phenomenon like Andy, who won the Wimbledon title this year; or Jamie, who won the mixed singles title in SW19 in 2007. This mission has been helped by Set4Sport; Murray's initiative tries to improve co-ordination in children by employing simple and cheap techniques. "Somebody has to create the opportunity, and that comes down to parents initially, then to coaches," she said. Murray insists the talent pool still exists but admits that there is a growing problem, saying that in her visits to schools of the past five years she has seen more overweight and unco-ordinated children. Her aim is to make sport more affordable, more accessible; though her eye is always on achieving excellence.

Murray, the captain of the Great Britain Federation Cup team, insisted that the coaching structure should be flipped. The best coaches now work with elite players but she would like to see committed, accomplished coaches working with children at the very earliest stage.

She said: "You can be a great coach of beginners in the same way you can be a great coach of an Andy. Your role model is one thing but you're only as strong as your grassroots which is the issue we're finding now."

She acknowledged that there was a financial problem with tennis, pointing out the cost of sending both Jamie and Andy on a trip to France when they were pre-teens. Both her sons were helped on their journey by the belief that such experiences instilled in them and by the hard-nosed reality of professional tennis. "In tennis you're paying all your expenses as a professional player, not just for yourself but your team of people who travel with you," she said. She pointed out that not many players outside the top 100 can make a lucrative living from the game.

Sitting in the national stadium, she said: "I sometimes wonder with football. You can probably make a decent living from being an average player and youngsters don't have any outlay because the club provide the kit, training and all the rest of it.

"You get your income whether you play or don't play and whether you're injured or not injured and whether you win or lose. In an individual sport you live or die by your own performance and I sometimes wonder when I see what footballers are earning - does it take away that drive to succeed?"

She said life could suddenly become very comfortable for someone who is earning £5000 a week. "They might say: 'Well, I'm quite happy with that so I won't bother working any harder."

The onus, in contrast, on junior tennis players was to labour long and hard to eke out a living before the riches of the top tournaments could even be contemplated.

This is the Murray mantra. "You must work your butt off," she said. It was the ethos of the rallies in the Ruchazie Park with Jamie and his mates on Wednesday. Murray played for more than three hours.

It was hard work. But it was fun, too. It was the Judy Murray philosophy in action.