Andy Murray: When I started playing tennis my mum thought I was useless

AFTER Andy Murray became the first Brit to win the Wimbledon men’s title for 77 years, the biggest roar on Centre Court came when he embraced his mother.

To critics, Judy Murray is a pushy sports mum, relentless in her ambition for her son to succeed. To Andy she’s simply “the one person who gets me, who understands me really well”.

And on Sunday a grateful nation knew exactly what he meant, with that roar thanking the mum who shaped, encouraged, and was always there for Britain’s newest sporting superstar.

Judy, 53, has described how she feels watching her youngest her son play as a “mixture of nausea and heart attack”.

“I do hope that people don’t think he was pushed into the sport before he was out of nappies,” she has said.

No, but Andy has told how as a two-year-old, complete with mini tennis racket, he and his mum would spend hours in their living room as Judy introduced him to a game she loved.

Eager to please, the toddler tried desperately to whack the balloons and sponge balls she gently threw his way. Yet constantly he missed.

He says: “My mum, my first coach, will tell you that when I started playing tennis she thought I was useless. Mum used to spend hours throwing balls for me to hit. She says I kept missing, whereas my brother Jamie could do it right away. It wasn’t until I was about seven that I started to become noticeably better. I had bad concentration, bad co-ordination and a temper. It was not a good combination.”

Andy’s phenomenal rise to the top of his game is a story of a boy born with a fiercely competitive nature. It is the tale of a sporting prodigy who was at first driven by sibling rivalry and then a desire to thank the family who sacrificed so much to let him achieve his dreams.

In his autobiography Coming of Age, Andy said: “I never got pushed into playing tennis, which was good of my parents because they could see I had talent. Mum and Dad always said to me, ‘As long as you’re happy, that’s the most important thing. As long as you are doing something’.”

Young Andy’s iron will meant he soon mastered returning soft balls in his living room and progressed to playing swing ball in the back garden. He was soon awarded his first real racket, a 16-inch Slazenger with a gaudy purple metallic frame and multi-coloured strings, which he still has today.

Andy’s childhood home, 200 yards from the tennis courts at the Sports Club in Dunblane, Perthshire, was sold a decade ago and the new owners found balls everywhere – wedged in roof tiles, guttering and flower beds.

By the age of four, Andy hated losing so much he’d overturn a Monopoly board if he wasn’t in the lead.

By five, he told Judy, a former professional player and now captain of Britain’s Federation Cup team, he wanted to “play a proper tennis match in a proper competition’’.

Leon Smith, who coached Andy in the early years, said he had never seen a five-year-old like him and described him as “unbelievably competitive”.

Andy impressed in tournaments against opponents twice his age, and dreamed of becoming a tennis great like his hero Andre Agassi.

However, it was the year of 1996 that shaped Andy’s life more than any other. He was a pupil at Dunblane Primary School when, in an atrocity that shocked the world, 16 fellow pupils and one teacher were killed as a gunman opened fire in the gym hall. Andy and brother Jamie took refuge in the headmaster’s office. But many friends lost brothers and sisters.

Like so many of Dunblane’s residents, Andy feels uncomfortable talking about the tragedy.

As if that year wasn’t painful enough, Andy also suffered the trauma of his parents’ split.

Mum Judy left the family home and dad Will brought up the boys.

Tennis may have been a factor in the separation. Judy, who was Scotland’s national tennis coach in those days, said: “I was away a lot and when you are coaching till late in the evening your domestic life gets hit for six.”

Will agreed, saying: “Tennis may have played a part in our break-up but we just grew apart.” Andy took the break-up badly. He said: “I always felt if I stayed with my mother for two nights, then I should stay with my father for two nights. At Christmas, I didn’t know how long to spend with each of them. I would get stuck in the middle of their arguments.

“When I was younger and went on court I was free from the arguments and fights my parents were having.I could just go out and play.”

Although Judy did not share his home, she did share Andy’s love of tennis. Thanks to her expert advice and his ambition, her youngest son rocketed through the junior ranks. And his urge to win knew no bounds.

Brother Jamie, 15 months older and himself a former Wimbledon doubles champion, admits he sometimes threw games when playing Andy because he could not endure his sibling’s black moods afterwards.

JAMIE’S superior tennis skills spurred Andy on. He says: “I’d never want to play against him because I would always lose. Then I’d get angry and he would wind me up.

“He beat me every time and would brag about it all week, which drove me crazy. He was bigger and stronger, but I worked and worked. My dream was to beat him and that made me more competitive.”

When Andy did finally triumph over Jamie, aged 10, he returned the years of goading by teasing him in the back of a minibus on the way home from a tournament.

Jamie thumped his fist on Andy’s hand so hard that the younger brother ended up with a black fingernail and had to have a tetanus injection. That fingernail has never grown back properly.

Disillusioned with the quality of training in Britain, 15-year-old Andy left home for the prestigious Sanchez-Casal tennis Academy outside Barcelona. His dad’s parting message was: “Don’t take s*** from anyone.”

His family had to find £40,000 to fund his 18-month stint. But as Sunday’s historic victory proved, it was worth every penny.

And all the way, mum Judy’s been there to support him, with Andy well aware of the sacrifices she has made for both him and his brother.

So much so that after losing the 2010 Australian Open Final to Roger Federer, Andy looked up to Judy and said: “I’m so sorry, Mum.”

She answered him: “Andy, don’t ever tell me you are sorry. Have you any idea how great that is for me, watching you on one of the best courts in the world, playing against the best player of all time? Your time will come, never forget that.”

And she was so right. Now his time has come.