Andy Murray calls for more coaching opportunities for women
Former world No.1 Andy Murray has urged tennis to address the imbalance in coaching roles for women on International Women’s Day, insisting that “the best coaches should be the best people.”
In a forthright op-ed written for the International Olympic Committee, the two-time Olympic singles champion underscored his belief that while tennis is ahead of the curve in its stance of gender equality, it still has some way to go when it comes to equal opportunities for women in the sport.
Murray writes about the impact that his mother Judy’s determination and work ethic has had on both his career and his outlook, particularly as she drives initiatives to establish the next generation of female tennis coaches.
But it was the appointment of Amelie Mauresmo as his own coach in 2014 that brought the issues surrounding gender equality in coaching to sharp focus for the three-time Grand Slam champion.
“The reaction to Amelie’s appointment as my coach, even from people close to me, was when I realised there was a problem,” wrote Murray. “The reason they were questioning her was purely based on her sex; it was not because of her ability or what she’d done in her career.”
The ITF Global Tennis Report, published in 2019, noted that of the world’s 164,000 tennis coaches, 21 per cent - roughly one in five – were female.
And while the Olympics is moving closer to gender parity, with Tokyo 2020 expecting a record 48.8 per cent of athletes to be female and the IOC introducing measures to ensure each nation will have at least one male and one female athlete at the Games, the disparity in coaching representation also has some way to go; at Rio 2016, women made up just 11 per cent of accredited coaches across all sports.
“The best coaches should be the best people and, at the Olympic Games, there’s no way that women should represent only 11 per cent of the best coaches – clearly more work needs to be done here,” Murray wrote.
“When it comes to mindset, skillset and intelligence, there’s no reason why a woman can’t be just as good as a man and hopefully things will change when women are given more opportunities.”
Murray called on those who question the notion of equal prize money at tennis events featuring both male and female players to instead embrace the message.
“It’s attractive to people watching, sponsors, TV, everyone, so don’t waste your time arguing about it; let’s celebrate it and actually use it to our advantage to grow the sport around the world,” he wrote, adding that tennis should be an example to others of the impact of mixed events among fans, particularly after his experience of partnering Serena Williams in the mixed doubles draw at Wimbledon in 2019.
“Normally when I win or lose at Wimbledon, people will come up to me and say: ‘Well done’ or ‘Bad luck’. But, with Serena, so many people said: ‘We loved seeing you and Serena playing together. It was brilliant.’”