THE eyes of the tennis world will be trained on Glasgow next week and Judy Murray was never going to let an opportunity like that slip by. It is why just days before the start of the Billie Jean King Cup [formerly the Federation Cup] she is leading a coaching session in the city’s east end with a group of excitable primary school girls who are pretending to be lions, tigers and monkeys and darting across a gym hall floor while their pals pelt them with soft sponge balls.
Few are as evangelical as Murray in her bid to bring tennis to the masses but she won’t be doing it forever. Just as her sons, Andy and Jamie, lest any reminder be needed, are approaching the evening of their playing days, so Judy wonders just how long she can continue what must often feel like a one-woman crusade to promote her sport in the face of ever-mounting challenges. She is in the privileged position of having both her coaching background and her high profile to help in those outreach missions but hopes others will take up the baton when she finally decides to call it a day.
