Why Wimbledon is a great time to get into tennis

When it comes to coaching, British tennis and embedding families into sport, there aren’t many better qualified than Judy Murray to talk about steps forward.

Murray tutored and guided the early playing days of her sons before they became Grand Slam champions. You might have heard of them: Andy and Jamie Murray.

For Murray, it’s now time to shift her focus – onto how to attract other families to the sport, and how to keep children involved in it, all while bolstering their all-important life skills. 

“I’m a big believer in encouraging family tennis, for obvious reasons. I got into it through my parents and my kids got into it through me and my parents, and their dad as well. I know how important that is, and when you start to compete in tennis the onus is very much on the parents to make it all happen, because it’s not a team sport.

“I like to see what is done to encourage families to get involved in tennis, because what I do see now is more coaching than ever before – and less playing of the game than ever before,” she says, sitting with Barclays at SW19 just weeks before Wimbledon fortnight.

“I’d like to see that tipped on its head and see more opportunities for people to just play, and to learn how to compete. Partly because that’s the fun of sport, but it’s also because of the life skill set that brings: resilience, team building, communication and sense of responsibility. 

“There’s a place for everything and, of course, the world has changed. So much now is about organised activity rather than free play. You don’t find the situations where kids come down and hang out at the tennis club all day long, or the golf club all day long, like they did way back. There’s much more organised activity.

“But I think it’s important that organised activity includes opportunities to compete at starter level so you learn how to play the game. 

“That was certainly a big thing when Jamie and Andy were small. Our club ran a lot of junior teams. We had school teams, different age groups, and in the club we ran lots of our own competitions, some of which were parent and child, some of which were adult and junior.”

Focus on families

As Murray knows, Barclays is at the forefront of this conversation. Wimbledon’s Official Banking Partner has begun a five-year partnership with the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), with the aim of getting 150,000 people playing tennis more regularly.

Barclays Free Park Tennis is the first of three initiatives, rolling out free one-hour volunteer-led tennis sessions in 100 public parks by the end of 2024. 

The goal is to enable the public to fully embrace the benefits of tennis, whether it’s improving their health, meeting new friends or simply trying out a different sport.

“These initiatives bring a huge sense of community and, post-Covid, there are the challenges with mental health, as well as our obesity problem too, that all these projects can help with.

“Tennis is a competitive sport, and kids who take it up need someone to play with, and if you’re taking it up at five, six, seven or eight years old, your first port of call is always going to be the parent. 

“So finding things that involve a parent or an older sibling coming down and joining in with the activity encourages you to play together, to meet others and stay involved in the game.

“I’m glad to hear that there’s going to be a lot of focus on families through the Barclays Free Park Tennis programme and the Big Tennis Weekends.”

The role of resilience 

The sacrifices and dedication required to reach the peak are getting ever-more demanding, and initiatives like these from Barclays drive participation and also enable people to break down the steps for learning to maintain interest.

“Tennis is a complex coordination sport, so yes, for many years it’s been perceived as difficult to do, difficult to access, and expensive,” says Murray.

“So much of what will happen with the Free Park Tennis programmes and Big Tennis Weekends is to show you how you can break down the skills that you need for tennis to make it more doable. 

“Whether that’s smaller spaces, smaller equipment or slower balls, we have to make it fun, and make it doable, because tennis is competing for attention with so many other things,” she adds. 

Every generation presents a different challenge. Tennis is up against a variety of sports, technologies and social shifts in the battle to gain numbers. Barclays is providing a platform for tennis to flourish.

“I think since the advent of everything with a screen, we have become a much more sedentary nation, and children learn so much about sport and competing through screens,” says Murray.

“I think tennis is more inclusive than ever before, so the key is to get children off the sofa and off their screens and onto a court. So if there are local facilities with fun, welcoming, regular activities, led by enthusiastic people, we have much more of a chance of making us become a more active nation, and to have more people playing tennis more often than we’ve ever had before,” she explains. 

And for Murray, Wimbledon fortnight is the sport’s time to shine and attract new players. 

“Most people who watch Wimbledon don’t already play tennis. So it gives us an opportunity to really capitalise on those being enthused by what they see on screen at Wimbledon or, if you’re lucky enough to come here, by what they see right in front of them,” she says. “It’s the importance of turning those eyes on screens into feet on courts. So the racket in hand is a big thing. It’s an exciting time for British tennis.”

Achieve your goals – on and off the court – with Barclays, the Official Banking Partner of The Championships. Find out more about Barclays’ partnership with the Lawn Tennis Association