Andy Murray, Product of a Tiger Mother

Andy Murray’s third consecutive loss in a grand slam final, at the 2011 Australian Open, revealed an interesting phenomenon. That is, he appears to be trying desperately hard to live up to the expectations of his mother, Judy Murray who is a Tiger Mum (SMH news article link here). She is Scottish, not Chinese or “Asian”.


Of the recent blogs about Amy Chua and Tiger parenting, I enjoyed reading Gweipo’s posts (see here, here, here, and there).

There are obviously some good points about the Tiger parenting approach … but I can’t help think that Andy Murray is, at least so far as can be observed, trying so desperately hard to win a Grand Slam for people other than himself. Does he want to succeed for his Tiger mother, and also for his entourage? It doesn’t appear to be for himself (which is perhaps a symptom of Tiger parenting?).

From a sports psychological POV, perhaps if Andy Murray were to take the pressure off a little and just play for himself and for his enjoyment then that might result in a significant change. Who knows? He can’t do any worse than what he has done so far, can he?