Cincinnati, August 2016.
Andy Murray had won his last 22 matches. Wimbledon, Olympic gold, and then another run of wins that seemed to have no end to it.
That ended in Cincinnati.
Marin Cilic beat him in two tight sets and the streak was over.
I caught a glimpse of Andy afterwards, cycling in the recovery area. It was a strange thing to see. He’d just lost after winning 22 matches in a row, but there he was already getting on with the next part of the day.
I met him a little later.
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. If I’d just lost a 22-match winning streak after winning Wimbledon and an Olympic gold medal in the same summer, I probably wouldn’t be in the mood for much conversation.
Andy was actually in great spirits.
He was smiling, asked where I had travelled from and seemed genuinely interested when I said Pune, India.
“Pune? That’s a long way,” he said. “You must be jet lagged.”
Which I probably was.
It amused me that, a short while after losing a tennis match, Andy Murray was asking me about my sleep.
I told him how impressive the 22 wins had been and asked if he’d sign my T-shirt. He said yes without making a big deal of it.
I still have no idea why I thought a T-shirt was the right thing to carry around at a tennis tournament, but I’m glad I did. I eventually gave it to my younger brother.
We met again a few years later when Andy came to speak at one of our conferences.
This time there was no tennis conversation at all. We ended up talking about golf and Arsenal, and whether they had a chance of winning the title. He seemed pretty confident they did.
It was a warm conversation, and much like the first time, there was nothing particularly complicated about him.
Andy Murray had just lost a match when I first met him. He’d had every reason to be miserable and wasn’t.
That’s probably the thing I remember most.
Grounded, warm and genuine. That’s Andy.