The Night Andy Murray's Mum, Judy Buried The Family Hatchet: She's Not Been Seen With Her Ex For Years, But That Victory - And A Stunning New Look - Finally Healed The Rift

Family affair: Andy Murray's divorced parents Judy, left, and William, right, embrace him at the Wimbledon Champion's Ball

Via -Daily Mail

Theirs is a divided family, long fractured by a traumatic marital breakdown. But for those who watched Andy Murray and his divorced parents, Judy and William, embracing each other joyfully at Sunday night’s Wimbledon victory dinner, there seemed remarkably little sign of past bitterness or regret.

Andy grinned happily, while William — known as Willie — appeared to be quite literally bursting with pride at his son’s achievement.

But it was the newly glamorous Judy who caught the eye. She looked more relaxed, youthful and polished than ever before.

So what’s behind her rather sudden transformation? After all, she used to be 5ft 8in of clench-jawed aggression, all fist pumps and death stares. A spitting cobra in a denim jacket.

Transformation: Judy Murray glowed at the Wimbledon Champion's Ball on Sunday (left). Her look was a far cry from previous years when she was a denim fan (right)

Apart from the obvious joy at her son’s victory — an achievement she has pursued on his behalf with all the tenacity of a pitbull — the 53-year-old is experiencing a late blossoming. Happy, content, and newly glamorous, Judy is glowing.

And it is this newly relaxed state which led to her warmly embracing her ex-husband so publicly. So could Andy’s victory help his parents build bridges after all these years of division?

Judy and Willie have never sat together at Andy’s tennis matches, always travel to his tournaments and events apart, and lead separate lives. This was the first time they have ever been pictured looking so content in each other’s company.

They split up when Andy was nine, a year after Judy went into tennis coaching full-time. She has always led a more jet-set lifestyle than her husband, an area manager for Scottish newsagent chain R S McColl. She was the one who left home, and he raised Andy and Jamie for four years.

She confessed that at the time of their break-up: ‘I was away a lot and then you’re coaching until quite late in the evening. Your domestic life gets hit for six.’ The pair were divorced after a nine-year separation in 2005.

Champion: Andy Murray lifts the Gentlemen's Singles Trophy at the Winner's Ball at the InterContinental Park Lane Hotel

Leading ladies: After an agonising day watching the tennis star play, his girlfriend Kim Sears and mother Judy Murray looked relieved to be celebrating the win at his side 

Time to relax: Murray took pride of place at the winner's table during the ball as he chatted to his parents and the family of women's winner Marion Bartoli

Sharing the celebrations: Murray was seen right, chatting to his parents Judy and William Murray during the evening who seemed happy to be in the same room together

Warm embrace: Judy Murray smiles as she hugs Kim Sears at the party. It had been a tense day for both women as they watched Murray battle to win the title

 Doing the round: Andy Murray talks to Roger Draper, the Chief Executive of the Lawn Tennis Association as his mother and girlfriend mingle with fellow guests  

Epic display: Andy Murray beat Novak Djokovic 6-4, 7-5, 6-4 to become the first British man to win Wimbledon since 1936

Andy has admitted he always felt there was competition between his parents. ‘If I stayed with my mother for two nights, then I felt I should stay with my father for two nights. At Christmas, I didn’t know how long to spend with each of them.

‘I would get stuck in the middle of their arguments. I would get really upset, and one of the things I would have loved to have more than anything was a family that worked better together, although I love my mother and father to bits.’

He also went on to say that he thought the anger he expresses in tennis matches could come from the trauma of the divorce.

But today things look very different for the Murrays. Judy is happily settled in a magnificent home in Bridge of Allan — not far from the old family home in Dunblane — which she shares with her long-term partner Phil Reid, a former badminton player who works for Sport Scotland.

While Willie has not remarried, he has been seeing a pleasant-looking brunette, 47-year-old optician Sam Watson, since 2009. She attended the Wimbledon dinner with him.

No wonder, then, that Judy exudes a new happy confidence. And where once she favoured sports clothes and tracksuits, she now models designer dresses: a ladylike white McQueen here, a Reiss bodycon there, and a smattering of roses on her chic trench coat. She even wore a pretty pale pink and black blouse this week, with matching pale pink lipstick.

Then there’s the hair. The roughly shorn, slightly frizzy, dark blonde bob of old has been transformed by a rather fancy hairdresser into a Jamie Lee Curtis-style crop. The colour is ‘white-hot blonde’. It cost £81 for the cut and £64 for the funky bleaching.

She still has that ferocious focus, of course, but as she said: ‘Things have changed a lot in recent years. I actually enjoy dressing up now. Perhaps my sense of self is changing a bit.’

Happy moment: Andy Murray kisses his mother Judy who broke down into tears of delight after he won the men's final at Wimbledon

So proud of you, son: Andy Murray climbed into the stands to give mother Judy a hug and a kiss after beating Novak Djokovic...

...she had earlier wept for joy as Murray took the point to become the first British men’s singles winner since 1936

This newly feminine Judy smiles. She flirts. She even dallies — publicly — with a very much younger Radio 5 Live hunk, George Riley, 34, and sends him warmly appreciative tweets which seem to invariably end with an ‘x’.

Although her flirtation is nothing more than just that, I can reveal the reinvention of Judy Murray is no mere coincidence. She has engaged a PR company who have the ticklish task of making us like her more. They have even secured her first modest sponsorship, for Lavazza coffee.

For a fee of around £25,000, she has agreed to plug the brand in a couple of interviews and attend a light-hearted photocall at Wimbledon where she served spectators with dinky little cups of free coffee.

It’s a far cry from the £9.9million which Rado pay to sponsor her son’s wristwatch, but it gently dips Judy’s toes into the waters of media celebrity. And it’s unlikely to stop there. She is exchanging titbits about her life in interviews: she likes Clarins face cream and Thai food, for example. Her PR advisers’ hope is that we will stop perceiving her as Team Murray’s most aggressive member and go gooey over her inner girlie.

Judy is being looked after by Simon Fuller’s XIX management, who also handle the PR for Andy and other sporting celebrities such as David Beckham and Lewis Hamilton. The aim is to make us warm to Judy as we have to Andy — the once surly, curly-mopped firebrand whose image has been softened.

Why? It has been obvious to Judy for years that she isn’t Mrs Popular, and with Andy achieving Wimbledon greatness at last, it seems to have occurred to everyone that something should be done.

Following in the footsteps of previous Wimbledon winners: Andy Murray climbs up to his friends and family after defeating Serbia's Novak Djokovic

Family support:  Andy Murray's mother Judy and girlfriend Kim Sears both anxiously watched the final from the sidelines

Moment of glory: Andy Murray receives a standing ovation from the crowd after beating Novak Djokovic to become Wimbledon champion

Winners: Andy Murray, left, poses with the Wimbledon trophy alongside Novak Djokovic after he won the Men's singles final

Rather than blame herself, she believes her poor image is down to sexism. She said recently: ‘I think a lot of the problems were to do with my gender. People seemed to have a problem with a mother pushing her sons. If I was a man, nobody would bat an eyelid.

‘A lot of my self-image, like most mothers, is bound up in being a good parent. It was incredibly hurtful to get letters from people I didn’t know — and who didn’t know me — telling me I was harming my kids.’

She added she had tried in the past to tone down her fist-pumping support for Andy, but it didn’t feel natural, and she hoped people would eventually accept her as she is. But will we ever learn to love the oh-so-intense Judy Murray?

Surely her unstinting support for her tennis-star sons (Jamie is also an accomplished player) must spark our admiration at least. She spends much of the year travelling to support her boys. With a shrug she calls this ‘gadding about’.

During Wimbledon she stays with Andy and Kim in their gigantic cream-painted home in Oxshott, Surrey, and helps out with laundry and other domestic chores.

She doesn’t cook — Andy has said she can’t even boil vegetables — but she is happy to watch him make sushi, and joins him in their home cinema to watch horror films. The bigger picture is that Judy has been there to help steady Andy’s nerves as he conquered this milestone in his career.

She has said: ‘Andy likes to have emotional support when the pressure is intense. It is sometimes easier to talk about your feelings and fears to your girlfriend or family than your coaching team.’

Glamour: Judy Murray (left) looked glamorous in a full-length multi-coloured sequin dress, accessorized with a gold clutch bag as she arrived at the Winner's Ball

Big moment: The tennis star arrived holding Kim Sears' hand and right, Judy Murray greets BBC commentator John Inverdale with a hug and kiss

She dips in and out of Andy and Kim’s home whenever she’s in London. A friend of the player tells me: ‘She doesn’t live with them. That would drive Andy mad. He’s just like any other young man. Judy is not there all the time.’

But it is certainly the case that Judy is around whenever she feels she needs to be. Last year, Andy said it was she who let in the drug testers who came to make a routine check at 7am.

While her son got out of bed, Judy made the visitors a cup of tea. Kim, it seems, was happy for her future mother-in-law to be the one answering the doorbell, which speaks volumes about Judy’s favoured status in their house.

It’s worth remembering she is intensely sporty. The daughter of a professional football player turned Dunblane optician, she excelled at tennis, winning 64 junior and senior titles in Scotland. But after the birth of Jamie and Andy, she focused on their success instead.

Andy was given his first racquet and ball aged two. He once said that he heard Judy swearing at him under her breath when they were playing tennis doubles together — he was eight years old at the time. She doesn’t do tennis ‘for the fun of it’ any more than he does.

She has said that Andy ‘is like me in so many ways’ — even down to the fact neither of them drink. Judy has been drunk only once — when she was a student and drank too many Southern Comfort and lemonades. She was violently ill and ‘has never done it again’.

Smiles all round: Andy Murray is interviewed by Andrew Castle during the presentation ceremony as Marion Bartoli of France waits to receive the Venus Rosewater Dish trophy

Elite: Wimbledon singles winners Marion Bartoli and Andy Murray pose with their trophies

It’s this discipline she called on to scout her son’s opponents to learn their strategies and weak points. When he reached the top 100 in 2005, she wept with joy.

She isn’t just looking at the opposition for Andy’s sake, though. It seems that Judy has quite an eye for a handsome man — as is evident from her Twitter feed.

Much to her son’s embarrassment she has expressed frank carnal admiration for some of his peers on the tennis tour, particularly the Spaniard Feliciano Lopez, whom  she nicknamed ‘Deliciano’.

A few weeks ago she tweeted: ‘Deliciano alert. Jaywalking on his phone in Eastbourne’ along with a photo of the player — just like a love-struck fan.

This despite the fact Andy hated it last year when she first started mentioning him on Twitter: ‘Oooooooooh Deliciano . . . looking good out there. As always,’ she drooled, which earned the response from Andy: ‘It’s making me throw up, it’s disgusting.’

Shameless? Perhaps. But then Mrs Murray — as intense, brash and competitive as her boy — has never been just another ordinary mum.

And not even a little light airbrushing and a smear of pink lipstick can disguise that.