‘Young women who have spoken out’ – Judy Murray praises Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka for speaking up on equality

Judy Murray has encouraged women and girls to follow the lead of tennis stars Coco Gauff, Naomi Osaka and Ons Jabeur, and “speak up” in order to improve equality.

Gauff and Osaka have both been active and vocal in their support of Black Lives Matter. Jabeur has blazed a trail in the sport by becoming the first African and Arab woman to reach a Grand Slam singles final.

Murray, who is a tennis coach and mother to players Andy and Jamie, thinks Gauff, Osaka and Jabeur are all helping to make positive changes in tennis.

Speaking on a roundtable discussion about representation in sport called 'A Seat At The Table', which was shown on TNT Sports and discovery+ on October 19 during Black History Month, Murray said about Jabeur: “There's your role model.

“For that area, for her country in particular, for me all major change has to come from the top. It has to come from the leader.

“If I look at Tunisia, immediately when Ons Jabeur starts to come through there are enormous initiatives to get more young girls, particularly playing tennis, but to open the sport up to many more people, and also to bring in WTA events and ATP events.

"Somebody has got to make that happen. Somebody has got to sense the opportunity and make it happen.”

Murray added: “If I look at Coco and Naomi Osaka, they're both young women who've spoken out and used their voices really well, whether it's Black Lives Matter, whether it's mental health, pressures of being in the public eye and so forth.

“I think that's one of the things that we have to do on the female side, is to encourage women and girls to speak up, because you wouldn't get any change if you don't talk about it.

“I remember Billie Jean King saying to me, 'if you don't make a noise, nobody will hear you'. And still she's always doing things. She's made a lot of noise over the years.

“I think if the right people use their positions to make great things happen, people will follow because people follow a leader before they follow a vision, so you need strong people.”

Murray was joined on the roundtable discussion by former England international footballers Rio Ferdinand and Eni Aluko, former England rugby player Ugo Monye, GB sprinter Dina Asher-Smith, and boxing promoter Frank Warren.

Talking about how to improve diversity in sport, Murray said: “I think it comes back to what we said before about all major change coming from the top.

“If you are the chair of the board and you're looking to bring new people on, or people come to you to ask or indicate an interest in going on, you have a duty to share your vision, your ambition, your strategy with whoever's coming on, and also to listen to what they think they can bring and the changes that they would like to see, because you both need to understand each other.

“Otherwise, you're not going to get anywhere, are you? You're going to sit, you're going to take a seat at the table and you're not going to be listened to.

“A really bad example from tennis is the ITF, which is the global development arm of tennis, which a few weeks ago announced its latest board and I read it and I'm going through it and it's 14 men again.

“It was 14 men when I first noticed it back in 2010. And in between time, because of certain people campaigning, there were 12 men and two women. And the two women who were on it were both former players, great players. And this is a global board and they came off it because they weren't being listened to.

“It definitely is about more seats at the table and more diversity in the seats at the table.”

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