Andy Murray ended Britain’s 76 years long Grand Slam draught by winning the 2012 US Open and now he is hoping to augment the popularity of tennis among his countrymen. To achieve his goal, the Scot is now gunning for a new national tennis academy for Scotland.

Andy Murray honed his tennis skills at the Scottish National Tennis Center, which is based at the University of Stirling, which is just a few miles from his home in Dunblane. This center has only six indoor courts and two outside shale courts.

Murray had a word with Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond regarding the same as he quoted after his celebrated home-coming, “One of the things that is missing in Scotland is a focal point for tennis that a lot of the promising juniors can go to practice at and have the best coaching. They have it in London but that doesn’t always work for everybody. People like different environments and I think it would be nice if we could have a quality national tennis center.”

Murray used to practice at the National Tennis Center in Roehampton, which is situated just a couple of miles from Wimbledon. But, that is quite far away for Scots. Andy Murray further added, “It doesn’t need to cost £40m like the one in Roehampton. It will be much, much less than that. But if we could have something like that, I think it would make a big difference. It’s a suggestion I will make and we’ll see what happens. I know how difficult things like that can be to pass off and it is a lot of money as well but it would be a nice thing to have and I will support it.”

On the other hand, Scotland’s First Minister Salmond asserted that “Both Andy and Judy are passionate about developing tennis in Scotland to ensure that youngsters have a greater access to the facilities and coaching that they need to make the most of their talent and potential.  We had a positive discussion about their idea for a tennis academy which is certainly in line with the Scottish government’s ambition to improve young Scots participation in sport. We’ll be exploring this with the Murrays’ and their team over the next two months and we hope to make an announcement in this regard in the near future.”