Andy Murray interview: I’ve become a YouTuber over joining Wimbledon TV coverage

In the player lounge at Queen’s last week, everyone was bent over their mobile phones. Players, coaches, even physios, despite the risk of developing the dreaded “tech neck”.

Not Andy Murray, though. The five-time champion – whose name is now emblazoned on the tournament’s main arena – was chatting to his agent on one of the comfy sofas.

“I’ve got rid of social media on my phone,” Murray tells me, with typical directness. “I was wasting too much time. I got given one of these things called a brick, one of those devices.”

Where you can only make phone calls?

“Yeah, can make phone calls, and then, yeah, just basically disable the apps and websites on the phone, so hopefully being a little bit more productive.”

More productive? This might sound like an odd goal for a man who, only a few months ago, admitted that he was spending six hours a day on his golf swing.

But then, we all go through phases in our lives. In Murray’s case, his all-encompassing focus on golf – the sport that took up the slack after his retirement from pro tennis in 2024 – has relaxed a little, if only because his body could no longer handle the long hours on the range.

“I got injured. I missed about two months of golf from the end of April through till the end of May. It was just hitting too many golf balls, so I had to have an injection in my back, which has actually helped me to start playing again. I’m not doing any more five or six-hour range sessions, just much lighter practice days on the golf course, but I officially got my handicap down to scratch the other day in the club championships. I shot a 75, which is three over par, but it was horrific weather.”

All of which brings us to the main purpose of this interview, which is to unveil Murray’s new portfolio career. Regular readers of the Telegraph Sport’s tennis pages will be aware that he has taken on a part-time role – thought to involve about 10 weeks a year – as Jack Draper’s coach. But unless you have access to inside information, you will not know about his latest project: a YouTube show, entitled The Set, which he is launching today with brother Jamie.

Created by the same production team that made Gary Neville’s The Overlap and Kevin Pietersen’s The Switch, The Set aims to bring a new audience to tennis which, according to Ofcom, is followed by just 10 per cent of British 18 to 34-year-olds. The first episode, which will be released at 5pm on Friday afternoon, finds the brothers trying to teach KSI – the digital influencer, football-club owner and Britain’s Got Talent panellist – how to hit a decent backhand. Other films show them playing tennis with historic rackets or even a series of domestic objects: chopping boards, bin lids, and a copy of their mother Judy’s autobiography.

Asked why he has chosen this DIY route instead of a more conventional berth on the BBC’s tennis coverage, Murray replies: “I just have always found tennis commentary and coverage to be quite down the middle. I don’t necessarily find it that interesting or that insightful. It’s not something that I really fancy doing, unless it was done in a very different way, and I don’t necessarily think that that would happen at Wimbledon.

“Whereas, with The Set, we have total flexibility about when we film stuff, we know which hours we work, and there’s no restrictions on what we can and can’t do. If I’m doing an interview in front of the camera, I’ve never really enjoyed it that much, but the YouTube stuff I’ve done – whether it be with [golf influencers] the Fore Bros, or Ian Poulter, or Kevin Pietersen – has been fun.”

By now, we have moved from the comfy sofas of the Queen’s player lounge into the adjoining office of the tournament director – who just happens to be Jamie Murray.

“We got amazing feedback from the Fore Bros golf video,” Jamie says. This was a 90-minute film, streamed via YouTube, that covered every shot in a nine-hole, four-ball scramble between the Murrays and their influencer opponents, Declan and Ronan Moloney. The Moloneys are neither elite golfers nor particularly skilled presenters, but they are likeable, relatable and authentic. The video has racked up 750,000-odd views, which makes it the highest-scoring entry in the Fore Brothers’s catalogue, eclipsing other films featuring the likes of Tom Holland, the Spiderman actor, and cricketer Stuart Broad.

“That piqued my interest in doing something like this,” Jamie adds. “Andy got some amazing comments about it, because people see him in a different light. Away from a tennis court, enjoying himself, messing around. Even yesterday, I’m talking to one of the runners [at the tournament] and he’s like, ‘Oh, when are you going to do a rematch with the Fore Bros?’”

Is there a contradiction between this new project and Andy’s stance on social media? Perhaps slightly, but then YouTube is more than just a smartphone-based medium. For anyone under 30, it is a rival to traditional TV. People watch it on all sorts of screens, including laptops or even desktop computers, often while they are supposed to be at work.

Teenagers in particular should warm to the KSI connection. In an echo of American counterpart Jake Paul, this former public schoolboy has built up 55 million social media followers through a variety of YouTube pranks and stunts. Yet Andy Murray’s own children – 10-year-old Sophia, nine-year-old Edie, seven-year-old Teddy and five-year-old Lola – are unlikely to be viewing KSI’s work in the short term. Murray says he is fully in support of the proposed social media ban for under-16s, because “it just removes a difficult part of parenting”.

“My kids don’t really watch YouTube and stuff,” Murray adds. “We try and keep them off screens as much as we can, try and keep them outside, running around, playing sports and being active. They all like different stuff. Some of them do a bit of athletics, and they do all the school sports, like hockey, netball, cricket, a bit of football.”

Judging by this description, Murray’s progeny sound unlikely to extend the family’s tennis dynasty, which started with mother Judy’s rise to Scottish No 1 in the 1970s. But then, it is hard to think of many really high-profile tennis players who have put their children on the court, with the exception of Bjorn Borg and his son Leo (whose world ranking peaked at No 334 three years ago). Having spent so many years in isolation, they tend to recommend the collegiate vibes of team sports instead.

Even though he is safely retired – and not missing pro tennis at all, as he assured the contrastingly nostalgic Serena Williams when he bumped into her last week – Murray has concerns about the relentless nature of the modern game. The mental and physical workload has contributed to a long list of absentees from this summer’s Wimbledon, of whom Carlos Alcaraz – champion in 2023 and 2024 – is the most notable example.

Towards the end of our interview, I ask Murray about the trend for the four slams to expand from two to three-week events. The US Open brought in a “reimagined” mixed-doubles tournament as an amuse-bouche last year, while the Australian Open experimented with the so-called “1 Point Slam”, and Roland Garros souped-up its qualifiers.

Wimbledon, thus far, is the exception, largely because it will not have the capacity to run qualifying on site until the much-delayed and disputed golf course expansion has been completed. From Murray’s perspective, this may be a mercy.

“Should they do the third week at Wimbledon?” he asks. “I don’t necessarily love the three-week thing for the players, personally. It’s the intensity around the event. One of the things that I loved about Wimbledon was the old middle Sunday [which began to stage play regularly in 2022], or the week beforehand, when it was quiet there.

“This is the biggest tournament of the year, and then when you add an extra week on site – with cameras everywhere now except in the locker room – there’s nowhere to switch off. At Wimbledon, if they have fans across the road [in what used to be Wimbledon Park Golf Course] to watch the qualifying, I hope they’ll keep an area where the players can practise in privacy at Aorangi Park [the roped-off area at the top of the existing site].

“I think it’s fair to be able to train a little bit in privacy at times. You know, football teams don’t have fans coming in to watch their practice sessions, and cameras listening into everything that the coaches are saying… unless it’s Southampton.”

This last wisecrack is delivered with Murray’s characteristic dryness. Even though he is genuinely sharp and funny, his deadpan delivery has fooled many observers into thinking him grumpy and dour. It is a misapprehension which the unimaginative tennis media ecosystem never managed to correct.

“That’s where I think tennis gets it a bit wrong,” Murray explains. “I played more than a thousand matches, and I would say I did an interview after pretty much every single one. A lot of the questions follow a similar line – about the match, and then about the next opponent – but I don’t think tennis always does an amazing job of telling more of the story around the players. Hopefully, with stuff like this [The Set], you get a better insight into what people are actually like.”

And perhaps, if it comes off, the show will finally bust one of the most enduring canards in sport: the idea that Andy Murray has no sense of humour.

Watch Andy and Jamie’s new YouTube channel here