Courting The Crowd

As she gets set for her appearance at the Wigtown Book Festival, Judy Murray reveals the influences and inspiration for her ace debut novel

- JUDY VICKERS

SHE'S been in the public eye for so long you would think appearing in front of a crowd at a book festival would be water off a duck's back for Judy Murray. After all this is a woman who won 64 titles in Scotland as a tennis player and built the country's first tennis infrastructure even before becoming a familiar sight as Andy and Jamie's mum in the audience at Wimbledon and a nation's favourite on Strictly Come Dancing.

But she says appearing at book festivals in 2017, when her memoir, Knowing The Score: My Family And Our Tennis Story, came out, was stepping into a different world. "Prior to that I would not have been talking about myself necessarily, I would have doing coaches' workshops or coaches' conferences," she says. "Book festivals really helped me with my public speaking and my confidence to address bigger crowds, it was a really good experience."

Which is just as well, as this month Judy will be back in front of a book festival audience at Wigtown, talking about her debut novel, The Wild Card, which she describes as a "feel good, triumph over adversity story". It's the tale of talented tennis player Abi whose hopes of sporting success are thwarted as a teenager but who gets a second chance at glory nearly 20 years later. The idea that it's never too late to follow our dreams is one that Judy definitely endorses. "The number of people who say to me, 'Oh, I'm too old to get started in tennis. Absolutely not!". And since, at 63, she is part of the debut authors theme at this year's Wigtown Book Festival, it's a philosophy which she lives as well as advocates.

The quote on the book's front cover - "utterly thrilling and joyful" - is from Anton du Beke, her partner on Strictly in 2014 and it is the dancer who Judy credits with inspiring her to write, after he gave her a copy of his first novel-set in the world of ballroom.