JUDY MURRAY has revealed that the "one remaining big goal" in her life is to establish the Murray Tennis Centre in Scotland as her legacy.
The mother of Scottish tennis star Andy Murray, currently the world's number two, says a new centre named after her family would be affordable and accessible to any children who wanted to take up the game.
Murray, a renowned tennis evangelist and coach, is currently trying to earmark a site in central Scotland close to Dunblane, where she and her two sons, Andy and Jamie, first played tennis together.
"This is my big goal. I want it to be something to leave behind," said Murray. "It would absolutely kill me if Andy finished his career in five years' time or whenever and we didn't have much to show for it here in Scotland. The opportunity is there. I've got to do it.
"Ideally, the centre would be somewhere near Dunblane. The town and its surroundings are where it all started for me, so I'd want the community and families to be right at the heart of it."
However, costs are prohibitive, as Murray is discovering. Establishing the kind of publicly accessible tennis centre she wants would require more than £15 million in initial funding, with heavy maintenance costs thereafter. It might have to be a partnership between the Murray tennis dynasty and local agencies.
Murray has long lamented the lack of tennis facilities in Scotland, with scores of former public courts demolished or in disrepair. In places such as Inverness, Ayrshire, Perth and the Borders – where tennis had previously been popular – there is a dearth of facilities.
"We have this huge opportunity in Scotland," said Murray. "Tennis has gone through the roof and every kid in every primary school will know something about tennis and Andy. But I don't think tennis in Scotland has been able to capitalise on the profile, because we have insufficient facilities or an insufficient tennis workforce.
"Andy has been in the world top five for five years now. He has been in a number of Slam finals and has won the Olympics. Yet in all that time there have been just two new indoor tennis courts in Scotland – both at private clubs.
"For me, that is very sad. Right now in Scotland we have this huge opportunity, but thus far we haven't taken it."
Murray, who won 64 titles as a player in the 1970s, has been coaching for more than 25 years, having started at Dunblane High School. She is widely credited with nurturing the tennis talents of Andy and Jamie from an early age, but has forged the careers of many other Scottish players, including Jamie Baker and Elena Baltacha.
Murray is Britain's Fed Cup team coach and holds regular clinics in various parts of Scotland. It is the knowledge she has built up over four decades in tennis – playing and coaching – which she wants to leave behind in a dedicated tennis centre for future generations.
"If you asked me if there was one big thing I would like to do, this is it: to establish a tennis base for teaching, coaching and playing. It is the one area in which I feel I could leave some sort of legacy.
"It would be a legacy in people, who could share the knowledge and knowhow of teaching kids to play and love tennis," she says. "And I'd want it to be a centre where tennis was accessible and affordable to all.
"Ideally, it would be a community club, with a team of people and a mobile outreach programme, so you could send coaches out to schools, clubs and rural communities.
"I want to share and leave behind everything I have learned about coaching, from club level right up to the top of the tour, so that when I'm dead and gone there is a workforce that knows what to do and can spread the word. I have to do it."
One problem Murray has is that the area around Dunblane is not densely populated – and the centre would have to be commercially self-sustaining once it was up and running.
"I'm looking at one or two options, but it is very difficult to make tennis on its own sustainable," she added. "Courts cover a big area, so it is a big expense. And indoor tennis, which we need here in Scotland, is especially expensive."
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