SCOTLAND has not built upon the legacy left by star duo Andy and Jamie Murray, failing to capitalise on the surge in popularity the pair brought the sport, their mother Judy has said.
While speaking on BBC Radio Scotland she explained that children from outside the Central Belt struggle to access coaching opportunities.
She said that desperate parents have "bombarded" her with emails, saying "this is being all left to the parents that there's just not a good pathway that works", adding that Scotland's current top tennis stars were trained overseas.
Cameron Norrie is Scotland's highest-ranked singles player at 29th in the world, while most recent challenger Jacob Fearnley is ranked at 159th. Both honed their skills at colleges in the US rather than Scotland.
Andy, considered one of Scotland’s greatest ever sportsmen, won three Grand Slam titles including two at Wimbledon, as well as gold medals in the 2012 and 2016 Olympics while also being ranked as the number 1 single's player for 41 weeks over his career, hitting the height for the first time in 2016.
Jamie, who's impressive success has often been overshadowed by coverage of his brother, also won two men's doubles Grand Slam titles, the 2016 Australian Open and 2016 US Open, and five mixed doubles Grand Slam titles, including two Wimbledon victories (2007 and 2017). He was ranked at number 1 for doubles for nine weeks in 2016.
"It is very disappointing where we're at now, given the massive shop window that we had," their mother told the BBC.
"Think when Jamie and Andy were going through the best years of their careers, it established a huge interest and a huge fan base across the country.
"We had a lot of Davis Cup matches, GB matches that were at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, for example.
"And it gave us a world-class competition for people in Scotland to be able to go to without having to trek down south. And the shop window was there - it could never have been any bigger than that."
The youth side of the sport is lacking the infrastructure and accessibility needed to grow the sport's player base, she added.
But there is also deep inequalities tied to the current model, with only around 12 state schools having access to their own courts and community clubs often being located in more affluent urban areas.
When a young athlete is able to join a club, or play through their school, "there is no funding for taking them to tournaments - it's all up to the parents to do this," she said.
"The regional centre [at Stirling University] is closed for the school holidays, which doesn't make any sense. It's the only one in the UK that's closed for the holidays.
"That's when the kids are around, it's when you can bring everybody from across the country together, because you don't have school to worry about."
"Tennis Scotland should invest in clubs and coaches in local areas and not be operating a centralised system where they try to bring everybody to one base and spend all their money on full-time staff," Murray argued.
In response, Tennis Scotland said it "has a positive and ambitious strategy, which has led to record investment in facilities, schools tennis and our performance pathway, which ensures young players now receive high-quality localised coaching within their district as part of the wider LTA Performance strategy.
"We have a proud record in player development, including helping two juniors on our programmes reach the world's top 10 (ITF junior rankings) in recent years and will continue to support and motivate hard-working coaches as they help young players fulfil their potential.
"We have record numbers of courts being built, both indoor and outdoor, and record club membership, which has grown year-on-year across Scotland.
"We will also be making more announcements soon regarding further significant investments for tennis in Scotland."
