Mother Judy expecting a big season for Andy Murray

Judy believes her son performed excellently last year considering his injury problems. Picture: John Devlin

World No 4 Murray fell just short of a spot in the final of last week’s BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, going down 6-2 6-3 in his final four clash to Novak Djokovic – a sixth straight win for the Serbian.

But it was far from doom and gloom as during the competition he racked up the 497th win of his career, passing Tim Henman for the most victories by a British player in the open era.

The 27-year-old also showed glimpses of his 2013 form that saw him claim the Wimbledon title, before back surgery resulted in him struggling for the majority of last year.

This year Murray has already reached a Grand Slam final – that man Djokovic again pipping him to the Australian Open – and now he is back fighting fully fit mum Judy believes there is plenty more to come.

“2014 was a difficult year for Andy because he was returning from back surgery and any kind of surgery you just don’t recover quickly from,” said Judy Murray, speaking at the SSE Arena at Wembley, where she is a mentor for SSE’s Next Generation programme, which provides vital financial and development support to 100 young athletes from across the UK and Ireland.

“But I think when it’s in your back it takes a long time to get it to the stage where you can put it through what you need to, to play tennis at the very top level and I think once he got into the back end of the season he finished it very strong.

“He won three tournaments, he qualified for the end of year finals and finished the year at six in the world, which is an incredible achievement considering he had what he would say was an inconsistent season.

“But then he had a really good off season with his coach Amelie Mauresmo and played incredible tennis all the way through Australia and the preparation events. That was a really good sign and it was good to see him back moving well and happy and healthy and playing his best tennis.”

Meanwhile, British women’s No 1 Heather Watson battled through more than two hours of sweltering heat at the Miami Open last night as she recovered from a set down to defeat Russian qualifier Evgeniya Rodina 3-6, 6-1, 7-5 to reach the second round.

Watson, ranked 41 in the world, found herself 4-0 down inside 15 minutes as the first set ran away from her. But the 22-year-old composed herself and was able to turn it around.

• SSE’s Next Generation programme partners with SportsAid to provide financial support and training to the sports stars of the future. Keep up to date with the latest @SSENextGen