“We’re no further forward, we’re just waiting…” For three score years and ten those words could have been spoken by generation after generation of British tennis officials and lovers. Vast millions of pounds were generated by the staging of the world’s favourite tournament, but no-one seemed to know how to produce a male player capable of taking on the world’s best.
Then along came a woman from Dunblane whose own playing aspirations had been frustrated by a lack of opportunity to develop her skills. When her own sons showed aptitude for the sport she loved Judy Murray and her family were prepared to do whatever it took to hone their skills to the necessary level and get them access to the facilities and expertise required to ensure they could explore their full potential. Seven Grand Slam titles - Andy’s two Wimbledon triumphs and his US Open success along with big brother Jamie’s Australian and US Open men’s doubles victories and his brace of Wimbledon mixed doubles titles - were the reward for the courage and vision it took.
As she sat in Perth Tennis Club on Friday five days after watching Jamie claim his latest success, no-one had better earned the right to throw down a good-natured challenge to tennis lovers to show their creativity and imagination in the SSE backed #TEAMUP challenge that will see the winner take the court at The Hydro during the Andy Murray Live event in November. The Murrays would also, however, seem to have earned the right to far greater support than they have received to date given the impact they have all made and their commendable collected desire to ensure this is not just a historic blip, but that tennis in Scotland now builds on the platform they have provided.
Whatever the final outcome, then, it seems little short of rude that getting on for a year after she gave evidence to a Reporter appointed by the Scottish government to hear an inquiry into an appeal against refusal of planning permission for a tennis development on Park of Keir, on the outskirts of her home town, that was her answer: “We’re no further forward. We’re still waiting.”
In the Britain that Scotland remains part of, it also seems profoundly wrong that while facilities in Bournemouth, in Birmingham, in Nottingham and at Queen’s Club can all stage significant tournaments ahead of Wimbledon, Murray’s explanation for the absence of a Scottish tournament is simple and obvious as she points out that there is no suitable venue in the entire country. She identifies the much vaunted Commonwealth Games in Glasgow as a missed opportunity for the sport at which Scottish excellence is now recognised more than any other, suggesting that welcome as the combined £15 million finally promised by a combination of Tennis Scotland and sportscotland may be it must be doubled to have the required impact across the country.
“If tennis had been part of the Commonwealth Games for example we could have got a competition venue that could have hosted something bigger, but unfortunately it wasn’t,” she observed.
“You’d either have to build something that is a purpose built major competition venue or something like the SSE but with several halls that could put on something like that.”
However much goodwill the Murrays maintain such opportunities will not be endlessly available and something more concrete than admiration and adulation from their compatriots seems deserved by way of support. Either way, though, when it comes to the proposal that is currently still on the table, surely the least that is owed to Judy Murray is the basic good manners of an overdue response to her well-reasoned request.
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