SEPT 25 - 27, 2026 | LONDON
Sir Andy Murray knows how to play in London. He has two Wimbledon trophies, five from Queen’s Club, a gold medal from the London Olympics and an ATP Finals win at The O2. Playing at home, though, wasn’t easy.
“I definitely felt a lot of pressure,” Murray told Andy Roddick during Saturday’s Served podcast at the Laver Cup Fan Zone outside London’s The O2. “I did feel really nervous in the build-up to big events and stuff, but it also helped with my focus. I felt like because there was more attention on me, I always prepared properly and was able to use the crowd. I always enjoyed playing in front of big crowds and those atmospheres.”
Murray said the nerves got worse as his career went on, and with so much outside pressure and expectations, he felt like he was playing for something more than himself. “When I played for something bigger, I performed better,” he said. “It definitely helped me.”
After winning Wimbledon in 2013, he said he felt relief, not joy. “I was just exhausted. And slightly disappointed, not with the results, just more I’d built this up in my head that this was the end,” he said. “You win this, you complete tennis. It’s over. It just wasn’t. Life goes on.”
He changed his perspective and, after winning in 2016, soaked in the moment, calling it the “most enjoyable win of my career.”
Murray said playing for something bigger was enough to convince him to join Laver Cup after a few years. “I came to the net, and I looked over and had Roger [Federer] there, Rafa [Nadal] there, Novak [Djokovic], Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe; it was just insane, really,” he said. “I loved it. It was an unbelievable atmosphere. I had never experienced anything like that in my career before.”
Now that his career is over, Murray says he’s spending a lot of time golfing and looking after his kids. But he’s also coaching, having worked with Djokovic and now Jack Draper. His perspective is that “you can learn from all sorts of people. Many of my coaches over the years, I was a better tennis player than, but I still learned a ton from them.”
When working with Djokovic, he focused on helping the Serbian focus on what made him great, the decisions he made when he was at his best, and to push away the doubts that started to creep in.
American tennis star Andy Roddick has spent the past two Laver Cup events broadcasting his Served podcast live from the site. He tells LaverCup.com it’s amazing to see so many people show up three hours early just to hear people talk about tennis. But he’s for it.
There was a time, though, Roddick wasn’t as hyped about Laver Cup. “I remember having an argument,” he said. “Davis Cup was a big deal to me. If you have an event with the biggest draw potentially in tennis history [Roger Federer], it is going to work, but my question was, ‘was it actually sustainable?’ and I’d hoped it would be. It has been. You build it with Roger, and that it lives on with other people is a big deal. I’ve been converted.”
Roddick said he misjudged one key factor. “What I underestimated was if you get enough excellence in a room, everyone is going to care,” he said. “Murray was talking about it, even someone as accomplished as him, when you look over and see Rafa, that matters to you. That has weight to it.”
As Roddick continues to get deeper into the world of tennis commentary, he said his job as an analyst is quite simple. “I need to inform the viewer why [tennis] is hard,” he said. “If someone is missing shots, it is not something accidental; it is something the other person has game-planned or strategically done. Some commentary in the past started backward from this is easy and that’s just not the case. Let’s just tell people why it is hard. I have enjoyed that part of it.”
If the Laver Cup ever came calling for a new Team World captain or vice-captain, Roddick isn’t sure he’d be cut out for it. The first thing he’d do is call John McEnroe, Andre Agassi and the past vice-captains to get a feel for the job to “be self-aware enough to see if it was something I would add value to,” he said. “You want to make sure you are adding value to the process and prestige of this event.”
