JUDY MURRAY SPLITS WITH BOYFRIEND
Andy Murray split up with his coach Ivan Lendl and replaced the former Wimbledon f i nali s t with amelie Mauresmo. now his mother Judy is ringing the changes off court.
I hear the 54-year-old, self-confessed ‘white-hot blonde’ tennis coach has broken up with her l ong- t erm boyfriend, Phil reid.
Judy, who i s said to be i n the ‘advanced stage’ of talks to appear in the next series of Strictly Come dancing, bought a £815,000 ‘ dream’ home in Bridge of allan, Stirling, with the former badminton player in 2012.
‘I have no partner,’ is all she will tell me. It is not known if Judy has met anyone since her split from reid, 48, who is high performance manager for the quango Sportscotland.
Only last year, Judy wrote a gushing article about the ‘lovely’ romantic dinners she managed to squeeze into her busy schedule with ‘my long–term partner, Phil’.
Her marriage to andy’s father, Willie, an area manager for Scottish newsagent chain r. S. McColl, ended when the future Wimbledon champion was nine, a year after she became a fulltime tennis coach.
She was the one who left home, and Willie raised andy, now 27, and his brother, fellow tennis professional Jamie, 28, for four years.
‘I was away a lot and then you’re coaching until quite l ate i n the evening,’ said Judy. ‘your domestic life gets hit for six.’
The pair were divorced after a nineyear separation in 2005.
andy has said he always felt there was competition between his parents. ‘I would get stuck in the middle of their arguments,’ he said. ‘I would get really upset.’
Though Judy’s split from Willie was traumatic, their relationship has since become more cordial and they were pictured embracing at the dinner after andy’s historic Centre Court victory last year.
Judy does have an eye for a handsome man and, much to andy’s embarrassment, has expressed carnal admiration for some of his peers on the tennis tour, particularly Feliciano Lopez, whom she nicknamed ‘deliciano’.
Last year, she posted the message ‘deliciano alert’ on a social network like a love-struck fan. ‘Jaywalking on his phone in Eastbourne,’ she reported, with a photo of the player.
She had earlier mentioned the Spaniard, drooling: ‘Ooooooh deliciano . . . looking good out there. as always.’
andy responded: ‘It’s making me throw up, it’s disgusting.’