COLIN Fleming might have been savouring the Melbourne sunshine right now, hitting balls and generally leading the glamorous, carefree existence of a world class sportsman. Instead, he finds himself at a university campus in chilly Stirling, getting his feet under the desk as Scotland’s new national tennis coach, a role which he will juggle with being father to two children under three. The 30-year-old wouldn’t have it any other way.

The appointment on Monday of the Davis Cup hero and doubles expert from Linlithgow to a post once filled by Judy Murray yet considered surplus to requirements at Tennis Scotland ever since Ellinore Lightbody left the organisation in 2010 was merely the latest piece of good news at a governing body which recently celebrated a landmark facilities funding announcement of £15m from the LTA and sportscotland. A dynamic chief executive to drive the operation is the next piece of the jigsaw but Fleming has hardly had the opportunity to cast a backward glance at a playing career which saw him win Commonwealth gold for Scotland in Delhi with Jocelyn Rae and become a dollar millionaire.

“Since my son Alex was born on December 2 it has been a really busy period for me, so I probably haven’t had a minute to miss it,” Fleming told The National. “But even now that the season has picked up and you see the players out in the sunshine, practising and everything, I am very much content with the role I have got and the decision I have made.

“I had been thinking for a while that if the right opportunity came up it would be time to make that step,” he added. “I had achieved a few things and maybe felt like my drive had slipped a little bit. There is also the family situation at home. I have two great kids now [Rose and Alex], it is really busy and I want to be at home seeing them. Tennis has given me lots of friends, lots of good times and I wouldn’t have stopped if it wasn’t the right opportunity. This is it. I am really excited to get started.”

Fleming has been inundated with congratulations from his peers on the tennis tour, and has already had a lengthy discussion about the role with Jamie Murray. While he had started lending a hand with some of Scotland’s most talented teenagers already - hitting occasionally with the likes of Ewen and Maia Lumsden, Aidan McHugh and Ali Collins - he plans to pick the brains of the likes of Andy and Jamie, Louis Cayer, Judy Murray, and Leon Smith on a regular basis. He hopes to display the same zeal for the position which Judy once did.

“Obviously I have some relationships with the top national-supported players already and I plan to be on court a bit with them, supporting them and supporting their coaches as well,” said Fleming. “But there is a huge job of work beyond that, in terms of the base of players we have got coming through. Making sure we have got a strong pathway in place to ensure we have a strong base of players at the bottom, bringing them into performance tennis and developing them with the ultimate aim of producing more professional tennis players.

“Being a high level player doesn’t guarantee in ay sport that you are going to be a successful coach but I have been really fortunate in my career to work with some really brilliant coaches,” he added.

Fleming will have to be a self-starter in the role, but so too was Judy, a point she recently relayed to me, by way of recounting a discussion with Fleming’s father Martin. “I was talking to Colin Fleming’s dad at the O2 and he said ‘could you ever have imagined it would turn out this way?’,” recalled Judy. “I said ‘no, because I didn’t really know what I was doing’. He said ‘you always gave the impression that you knew what you were doing’. I said ‘well that’s good – because you definitely need to give that impression’.