Game set and match: Judy Murray comes to York

Posted on 12 April 2018

Former Scottish international tennis player and national coach, Judy Murray, is coming to the York Festival of Ideas to talk about her new book Knowing the Score: My Family and Our Tennis Story.

Judy Murray. Image credit: Mark Atkins

With 64 national titles to her name, Judy has had a distinguished career in the industry, including supporting her two tennis Champion sons, Jamie and Andy Murray.

The talk, which will take place on Sunday 17 June, is part of a busy programme of mostly free Festival events including talks, performances and exhibitions on the theme of ‘Imagining the Impossible’.
Judy will discuss her tennis career and the challenges she has faced; from desperate finances and growing pains to entrenched sexism.

Grand slam

Judy became the Scottish National Coach in 1995, the same year that she became the first woman to pass the Lawn Tennis Association’s Performance Coach Award.

She initiated the Scottish Development School programme which ultimately produced four Davis Cup players and one Fed Cup player, including her Grand-Slam-winning sons, Jamie and Andy.

initiatives

In 2011 Judy was appointed Captain of the British Fed Cup Team and used this role to grow the profile and numbers in women’s tennis across players and coaches. Judy has developed several tennis initiatives including “Miss-Hits”, a starter programme for girls aged five to eight, “Tennis on the Road”, which takes tennis into remote and deprived parts of Scotland, and, most recently, “She Rallies”, a programme with the LTA, to encourage more women and girls into tennis across the UK.

Tickets for Judy’s talk and other festival events will be available from yorkfestivalofideas.com from the 8 May 2018.

York Festival of Ideas was established and is coordinated by the University of York and runs from Tuesday 5 June to Sunday 17 June. For updates on the programme and speakers please subscribe to the Festival mailing list at yorkfestivalofideas.com.