Gadget-mad kids can’t even catch, says Judy

JUDY Murray says children no longer have the coordination skills to play tennis because electronic gadgets stop them developing properly.

The Scottish tennis coach and mother of Andy Murray claims she now has to teach children basic skills like throwing and catching because they are not exercising enough at home or at school.

Writing in her autobiography Knowing The Score, the 57-year-old said: ‘If you don’t have the coordination skills, developed at home or in the playground, you will find tennis quite difficult.

‘These days kids are so often on electronic gadgets, only exercising their thumb, that they can be really clumsy – they simply haven’t had the chance to develop the motor skills that underpin most sports.

‘So now I find we have to teach those core physical skills like throwing and catching before you can get them to hit the ball over the net.’

Mrs Murray – a former captain of the British Fed cup team who set up Set Sport, an initiative to get children playing sport – also wrote about how she helped Andy and his brother Jamie, the world number five doubles player, to become tennis stars despite financial woes.

She said the family were ‘horrendously’ broke and she had to borrow ‘a frightening amount of money’ to pay for their training.