Judy Murray began her new role in British tennis yesterday with no fanfare but an announcement that she intends to build a generation of female coaches who can help to produce a nation of winners.
Having been appointed as Britain's Fed Cup captain earlier this month, Murray was never going to be content with simply sitting on court and offering the likes of Elena Baltacha the odd word of advice during their matches in the team competition.
So in addition to her role with the team, Murray wants the sport to invest in a "female coaching workforce" to redress the imbalance between men and women in the sport and will also be working with Britain's young players, their coaches and their parents to ensure that they develop in the best possible way.
"The group we're in at the Fed Cup at the moment means it's a four or five day event, so one week and a half, I guess, in February each year," Murray said yesterday, sitting alongside head of British tennis Leon Smith in a small room at the back of the National Tennis Centre in west London yesterday, with the Union Flag emblazoned on a screen behind her.
"It will be a massive honour, to lead out your country," she said. "But when I thought about it I thought I don't really just want to be doing that. I was getting my brain picked a lot by the parents of British players. [They were asking] 'What do we do now, what should we be looking at?'
"I feel like I could create a role where I could actually pass on the experience that I've built up over a number of years from working with players from eight right through to the top end of the tour and understanding how important it is to make the right decisions at each stage of the development."
Murray first became aware just how dominated the coaching is in this country by men when she was doing her performance coach award course in 1994. Of the 20 places, only two were given to women and the attitudes were pretty blunt.
"A man tried to stop me getting one of those places," she said. "He said because I had two young children, how could I possibly commit myself to coaching tennis at a high level?
"When I did a performance workshop in October, at the end all of the women came to speak to me and asked me about career pathways for women; how do you move on, how do you get further and so forth. We need to build a stronger female coaching workforce because we need more women working, at all levels, but particularly at a young age, when there's a lot of travelling to be done and [to utilise] the soft skills that women bring that men don't always bring when they're working with young girls."
Murray has been a regular member of her youngest son's entourage but her new commitments – believed to be around 100 days per year – mean she will not be quite as visible on the men's tour next year. "They [Andy and Jamie] were just delighted that I wasn't going to be cramping their style so much," she joked.
The 52-year-old will split her time between the Fed Cup squad, working with juniors and mentoring some of the female coaches. "I'll try to help them to understand how to analyse performance, how to video analyse performance, how to tag matches, how to scout opponents," she said.
"I think we could be criticised in this country for perhaps being too results-orientated from a young age and not investing as much time developing the 12, 13, 14, 15-year-olds with a view to what we want them to look like when they are 18, 19, 20, 21.
"It's about looking at what they need to be able to do in order for them to compete successfully on the international stage further down the line."
Having effectively taught herself how to play the game, Murray places the emphasis on tactical nous rather than pure technique. Her influence on Andy's style is clear to see and she believes natural talent should be nurtured rather than regimented.
"I didn't hit the ball beautifully but I learnt from playing the game," she said. "I always taught from a tactical base. I had to learn how to analyse and teach technique but my first leaning in any kind of coaching is tactical. It's not about who does a perfect c-shape on their forehand. That helps, but it's not the be-all and end-all and if we can create smarter thinkers in our coaches and our players, we should create smarter players and maybe more winners."
"We need to invest more in British coaches. If we have more, better coaches, we should have more, better players. I'll certainly do my best to pass on as much as I can of what I've learned along the way."
A Fed Cup team including Baltacha, Anne Keothavong, Heather Watson and Laura Robson holds promise and Murray believes they have an "outside chance" to qualify for the top division.
"The only team I would like to avoid would be Poland, who have a top-10 player [Agnieszka Radwanska] and a specialist doubles team," she said.
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