As the career of Jamie Murray enters a new chapter, conversations around his journey have sparked renewed interest in the decisions that shaped his path—including the role played by his mother, Judy Murray.
In a reflective, imagined perspective, Judy is portrayed as looking back on one of the toughest choices many sports parents face: when to let a young athlete leave home in pursuit of greater opportunities.
In a column on The Times Judy Murray spoke about the bad experience lived by his son Jamie Murray, now a top doubles player who became World No. 1 for the first time in his life last year. At 12 age, Jamie moved to Cambridge to train with the Australian coach Ian Barclay, who successfully worked with Pat Cash helping him to win Wimbledon, in one of the regional tennis centers. Feelings weren’t good from the beginning, as Jamie was desperate to leave home and stay away from his parents and his brother Andy. Anyway, he went there and things didn’t go well on the tennis court. ‘While the school was fantastic, the tennis was not’, Judy, a former British Fed Cup captain, admitted. ‘The coach made changes to Jamie’s forehand in the first couple of weeks. Anybody who knows the first thing about kids can tell you that if you take them away from family and friends, the last thing you do is mess with their skills in the early stages of that emotional transition. Jamie was selected for the programme because he was talented then spent the first couple of weeks being made to feel he wasn’t that great.’
In January 1999 they travelled together to Tarbes where Jamie played a tournament. ‘On that first morning when he woke up, he just looked at me with those big sad eyes and said: “Mummy.” I could sense how filled with dread he was. He stayed close to me at all times, which was entirely out of character. When it was time for him to go back to Cambridge and me to Scotland he got quite upset. I snapped. “Enough,” I said to the coach. I looked at Jamie and said: “You’re coming back with me.” Again, he just said one word: “Okay.” And that was it. We headed home to Scotland together. I can’t believe I made such a big mistake’. Expectations were not the reality at all: Jamie wanted to be the best under 12 player with Richard Gasquet and Rafael Nadal, and instead his confidence was ‘shattered’, Judy wrote. ‘It was too much for him, too young.’
