'I was hoping to win a game' Andy Murray opens up about his most humbling match against Roger Federer

Andy Murray has shared one instance in his career where he felt ‘humbled’ on the tennis court. The 38-year-old is regarded as the greatest British player in the history of tennis in the Open era, having won three Grand Slam titles.

Murray retired from tennis in 2024 after competing in the Paris Olympics. Throughout his career, Murray was famous for his fighting character, which helped him overcome his retirement. Despite achieving great success on the court, Murray had his off days as well.

Murray recently appeared in the latest video of The Tennis Mentor podcast, where he shared an interesting story about an incident that left him embarrassed on the tennis court. Murray said the incident happened during the World Tour finals match at the O2 Arena against former world number one Roger Federer, in front of his home crowd. All he wanted to do was win a game, which he eventually did, after losing nine straight games.

"One of the things with tennis is that it's hard, but with great lessons," said Murray. "Most weeks, you finish the tournaments losing. Even the greatest players, if they play 20 tournaments in a year, if they win five of them, that's a great season. The other weeks, you're finishing with a loss. But I would say that one of the matches where I was humbled was at the O2 Arena in the World Tour finals. I can't remember if it was 6-0 5-0, it was definitely 6-0 3-0 before I won my first game, and it might've been 6-0 5-0 against Federer. He was playing great, I was playing awful. It was in front of a home crowd, a huge stadium. I think it was the only time in my career when I was hoping to win a game. I definitely felt humbled that day."