The strawberries and cream are coming out at MNHQ on Friday lunchtime when we'll be joined by Judy Murray for a webchat at midday until 1pm. Best known as being mum to tennis stars Andy and Jamie Murray, Judy herself can hold her own in the courts and won 64 national Scottish titles and represented Great Britain in the World Student Games. Judy is a PCA Qualified Coach and has coached at all levels. Inspired by her experience as a tennis coach and parent, Judy has created a programme called Set4Sport, which showcases easy and accessible ways for parents to play with their children that develop the skills required for playing sport. The programme centres around a book of activities, ball skills, and exercises based on the games Judy played with her sons when they were growing up and is supported by The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), long-term sponsors of the Murrays. The book details a range of ways parents can help children acquire basic physical skills in a fun environment and is available to download for free from //www.Set4Sport.com
If you want to put a question to Judy, join us on Friday 29th July at 12 midday or if you can't make that time, send in your question in advance to this thread.
WEBCHAT GUIDELINES: 1. One question per member plus one follow-up. 2. Keep your question brief. 3. Don't moan if your question doesn't get answered. 4. Do be civil/polite. 5. If one topic or question threatens to overwhelm the webchat, MNHQ will usually ask for people to stop repeating the same question or point.
MNHQ have commented on this thread
Mumsnet webchats
Mumsnet live webchat with Judy Murray, tennis player, coach and mum to Andy and Jamie - Friday 29th July, 12-1pm
RachelMumsnet · 26/07/2011 10:21
Yy re. The criticism. Always infuriates me, I want to ask the critics when they were last invited to play at Wimbledon or take part in the Olympics etc, let alone being expected to win 
We really don't show enough support and appreciation for our sports people/talented stars that are doing us proud.
I third that comment about the criticism - I hate hearing Andrew Castle and the like pontificating about whether Andy will ever win a slam, or whether Federer is finished....because Andrew Castle was SO successful wasn't he!
Welcome to mn Judy!
In addition to my questions, I too would be very interested in hearing about how you cope with emotions watching your boys and how this has changed over the years.
If not that many questions ...could you also tell us about how you managed you relationship as mum plus more with the boys growing up? Did you do any coaching? How did you seperate your involvement in their tennis from being a mum? Not sure I expressed myself well on that one
@ceebeegeebies
I love tennis and I so hope that Andy wins a Grand Slam (preferably Wimbledon) one day
My question is how do you seem so calm when you are watching your 2 boys play? I am sure you must be so emotional inside but you hide it well. Also, how difficult is to have to stay in the players box when one of your boys has lost on court and is sat there looking devastated (am thinking of the Grand Slam finals/Wimbledon semi-finals that Andy has lost) - surely you must just want to go down and put your arms around them?
Sorry, 2 questions there (but kind of linked)
Haha, I'm not calm at all. I just hide it quite well. There's a whole load of nausea and a heart attack going on at the same time during big matches! It's important to always try to appear calm and positive because the last thing your child wants to see when he/she looks up is their parent shaking their heads, sighing or panicking!
The tennis court is a lonely place when you have just lost a major final, but you have to accept there's nothing you can do until the ceremony is over. Think Andy would throttle me if I ran on the court and hugged him. Would seriously damage his street cred!
@TheGrimSweeper
We. Love. You. Chez grimsweeper! Dd (almost 8) and I met you last year in brim at one of the aegon side events - you were lovely, took time to give her some tips and take photo. Thank you for your part in inspiring her to keep on working hard.
Congratulations on the amazing achievements of both your boys. I am 100% confident that Andy will win some grand slams - but you know what? Even if he didn't, he should be so proud of himself. Well done to all of you as a family, undertaking anything at that level takes a life time of hard work, tears, commitment etc.
My question is, how hard should an 8 year old who loves the game, be playing and competing. How much is too much tennis - if it was up to her she'd play all day everyday - doesn't love the training/technical stuff, adores rallying.
A cheeky second one, what in your view happens to our juniors in the transition to seniors. How come so many aren't as successful. Is there an issue with mental strength do you think?
Thanks for coming to mn!
Ps. Roger Draper was on 5 live recently saying that idea that tennis is costly is a myth and that It's accessible to all. If you get a chance, please let him know I'd Like some of what he's been smoking
At age eight the most important thing is to learn how to love the game. Sometimes the training and "structured stuff" removes that enjoyment of just playing freely. When I look back at Jamie and Andy at that age, they just wanted to play points and matches. For them it was about "how to play the game" rather than "how to hit the ball". They played in the men's 3rd team at our club when they were between 8-10!
It's difficult to say how much is too much because everyone is different but I would say, let her play as much as she wants to play and encourage her to try other sports/activities, too. If she develops good coordination skills at a young age, she will improve much faster in a few years. Look at www.set4sport for ideas of how to help develop those skills in a fun and unstructured way at home and in the garden!
The junior tour is a relatively comfortable environment because the kids know each other, and so do the parents and the coaches. When they move to the senior tour, it's quite a different scenario and can be very tough and very lonely. Only the strongest survive. Not every junior player can hack the life of a touring pro. But if this is their chosen career path, you have to train them for it and that means being away from home, away from friends and family, in an environment of like-minded people (players and coaches) where they can learn to train and compete ? HARD! I'm not convinced we have those environments in GB yet, so our very best kids need to locate overseas for several months of the year.
Thanks for answering my question. It's a shame that with all the money going into tennis we need to rely on sending players abroad.
If allowed dd and I would have a million questions to ask
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@munstersmum
I was very interested to read Andy had a football club trial & Jamie has a low golf handicap. At what age did it become clear that tennis was the sport for each of them?
(Off at a tangent I read that you would have spent the recent investment in national facilities on more but smaller ones spread around the country - that would have reached out to more surely. Upwards inflection but no question mark to comply with one question rule
)Funnily enough, they were both about 15 when they opted for tennis. Up to that point they were both playing more than one sport. When they we growing up they tried all sorts of sports and kid of settled on 2 each. But Andy adores boxing and football while Jamie loves golf and football.
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