{"id":350877,"date":"2025-12-15T22:10:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T22:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/350877\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T22:10:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T22:10:23","slug":"andy-murray-couldnt-be-friends-with-federer-nadal-and-djokovic-tennis-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/350877\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Murray couldn’t be ‘friends’ with Federer, Nadal and Djokovic | Tennis | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andy Murray<\/a> won three Grand Slam titles, two Olympic gold medals, and reached No. 1 in the world – all during the Big Three era. The Brit spent years battling it out with Roger Federer<\/a>, Rafael Nadal<\/a> and Novak Djokovic<\/a> on the biggest stages in tennis. But he was never truly able to become \u201cfriends\u201d with his rivals, even though they had a good relationship.<\/p>\n

Murray, Federer and Nadal have all since retired from professional tennis, and the two-time Wimbledon<\/a> champion is now keen to spend more time with them. Murray has already grown closer to Djokovic in retirement, spending six months coaching his old rival earlier this year, and he\u2019s now invited his former foes to do something \u201csocially\u201d.<\/p>\n

The former world No. 1 appeared on Stephen Hendry’s Cue Tips<\/a> – the seven-time snooker world champion\u2019s YouTube show – where he opened up on his relationship with the Big Three.<\/p>\n

While Murray was never able to be close with the multi-Grand Slam champions, he still enjoyed practising with them. But it was a no-go for Swiss star Federer. \u201cI would practice with them, I\u2019d practice with Djokovic and Nadal,\u201d Murray explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first started, I would practice with Federer. But after a year or two, he stopped, he wouldn\u2019t practice with me anymore. He never practised with Djokovic or Nadal, I think because he considered them to be a competitor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like practising with them just because it gave me the chance to see where my game was at. I wouldn\u2019t practice with them a couple of days before a big match, but a couple weeks out from a major tournament, then I would practice with those guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

They didn\u2019t take that relationship off the practice court, however, as Murray found it difficult to form a friendship with players he competed against at the very top of the game.<\/p>\n

The three-time Major champion added: \u201cI was never going for dinner with them. Whereas now I\u2019d love to do that, see them a few times socially. Generally, if I\u2019m socialising with friends and family, you want to feel like you can tell them if you\u2019re struggling with something. But if you\u2019re competing against them, you wouldn\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murray isn\u2019t the only one who seems keen for a catch-up. Djokovic – the last man standing on tour from their cohort – has often shared his wish to have a drink with Federer and Nadal<\/a>, reflecting on their years of competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to [reflect on my career], but I think that\u2019s going to come probably when I set the racket aside and I sip a margarita on the beach with Federer and Nadal and just reflect on our rivalry and everything,\u201d the 24-time Grand Slam winner said earlier this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andy Murray won three Grand Slam titles, two Olympic gold medals, and reached No. 1 in the world…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[3780,433,813,4037,99,428,4563],"class_list":["post-350877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-andy-murray","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-rafael-nadal","tag-roger-federer","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-tennis-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}