After spending decades chasing greatness, Sir Andy Murray expected retirement to hurt. His pursuit of sporting immortality had defined his life, delivering three Grand Slam titles, two Olympic gold medals and millions in prize money.

Worried he could suffer the same fate as countless elite athletes who falter when the spotlight fades, the former world No1 even sought out psychologists in the months before his final Wimbledon appearance to help him prepare for life after tennis.

But when the end finally came, something quite unexpected happened. The two-time Wimbledon champion discovered he didn’t miss it. Not really.

The trophies were packed away, the memories relegated to the walls of a downstairs toilet. And the endless grind of practice, travel and competition left behind without regret. He has dipped a toe into coaching and commentating, before largely stepping away from both.

And rather than trading on former glories, he has poured his energies into life as a family man and successful entrepreneur with a string of businesses and sponsorship deals to his name.

From chasing winning shots on Centre Court, he now chases after his children on the school run. He once joked with This Morning’s Alison Hammond that getting his four children – Sophia, Edie, Teddy and Lola – to bed on time was now his biggest victory.

His pride in putting fatherhood first shone through in an interview with Hello! Magazine last year: ‘My relationship with my children in the last year has got so much stronger because I’m with them every single day,’ he said.

‘I’m very lucky that I’m in a position where I’m able to do that. I do all of the drop-offs and pick-ups, and I’m now there for all of the birthdays and school events. I love it.’

Despite her father being one of Britain’s greatest-ever sports stars, however, Sir Andy admits that eldest daughter Sophia finds him ‘embarrassing’.

He said: ‘When I drop her off, it’s like, “Turn the music off, don’t get out of the car”. She won’t walk next to me. She likes to walk quite a few steps behind me.’

Happy and de-stressed he may be, but that ultra-competitive streak which made him a champion still burns brightly.

Since retiring from tennis, Sir Andy has a new sporting passion – golf. After dropping his children off in the morning, he passes his suddenly empty days by hitting balls on the driving range near his Surrey home. In less than a year, he has reduced his handicap to scratch.

He has also snapped up endorsement deals like match points, becoming a brand ambassador for products as diverse as Walker’s Shortbread, Albert Bartlett potatoes, pet food firm Purina and footwear company Hylo.

Career winnings of around £50million has been bolstered by substantial sponsorship partnerships. Sir Andy works with big names like Jaguar, Castore, Under Armour and Head, as well as Amazon Prime Video, Standard Life and American Express.

All told, it has netted him a total fortune of £110million, according to the 2026 Sunday Times Rich List, making him its richest Scot under 40.

At the heart of this impressive portfolio is the grand project: Cromlix, the luxury Stirlingshire hotel he owns with his wife Kim Sears. This labour of love is about to present 39-year-old Sir Andy with his most unlikely shot at reinvention yet – as a reality television star.

Last week, Channel 4 announced plans to broadcast a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the couple’s attempts to renovate Cromlix, the five-star country house near the star’s hometown of Dunblane, near Stirling.

Sir Andy bought the property for £2million in 2013, the same year he won his first Wimbledon title.

After the couple married at Dunblane Cathedral two years later, they held their reception at the hotel.

The three-part series, Our Scottish Hotel, will be screened in December and takes viewers behind the scenes as the Murrays and the hotel’s 80 staff embark on the most significant chapter in the business’s history.

Channel 4 describes the redevelopment, involving the construction of a new wing housing two restaurants, as the biggest financial gamble the pair have taken since buying the property. It feels every bit as ambitious as anything achieved on a tennis court.

Lady Kim, 38, the creative force behind the venture, euphemistically describes the project – the first time the pair have worked together – as a ‘learning curve’.

She said: ‘The last couple of years have been full of change at Cromlix, with a huge building project and a totally new direction for fine dining and wellness. I was really keen to document that as there were so many personal stories and interesting discoveries along the way.

‘Andy and I haven’t worked on anything together before, so that was a fascinating process, and a learning curve.’

For those who recall her husband’s first camera-shy mumblings following his breakout moment as a teenage Wimbledon sensation two decades ago, his transformation into a kind of tartan Kardashian will seem all the more remarkable.

And yet, despite his trademark deadpan humour and ‘the most boring monotone voice in the history of the planet’, according to commentator and former player Pat Cash at least, he is actually a bit of a whizz at presenting. While fans will have to wait a little longer to watch the outcome of the Cromlix experiment, they can already tune in to their hero’s own YouTube channel, The Set, which he launched in the summer with his older brother Jamie.

Aiming to attract a new, younger audience to tennis, the first episode 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 videos show them playing tennis with vintage rackets or even a series of domestic objects: chopping boards, bin lids and a copy of their mother Judy’s autobiography.

The whole thing crackles and fizzes nicely with the gentle ribbing of decades-old sibling rivalry. Its DIY reality show feel is a million miles from the BBC’s straight-down-the-line coverage.

Sir Andy tried that once at Wimbledon in 2018 when he co-commentated on the epic quarter-final between Rafael Nadal and Juan Martín del Potro, earning plaudits for his insightful analysis. But, after five hours in the booth, he signed off with the words ‘Well, that was horrific’, and left it at that.

He prefers, he says, the spontaneity of The Set, telling the Daily Telegraph: ‘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 [golfer] Ian Poulter or [England cricketer] Kevin Pietersen – has been fun.’

Fun was something he had found in increasingly short supply as a player after a persistent hip injury curtailed his Grand Slam chances and prompted his retirement at Wimbledon in 2024.

He vowed he was done with tennis but there have been fleeting returns, such as an exhibition match to celebrate ten years of Nadal’s academy in his home of Manacor, Majorca.

Sir Andy documented the trip on The Set, which included a visit to Nadal’s museum, which has a section devoted to ‘The Big Three’ – Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.

There is a telling moment, when a rather embarrassed flunky is seen awkwardly explaining that Nadal ‘doesn’t feel good’ about the name, adding: ‘It was not his decision to make.’ Unfazed, Sir Andy laughs it off, quietly insisting: ‘No, no, that’s fine.’ One wonders whether he would have been so calm and forgiving at the peak of his on-court battles to smash into this rarefied club and make it The Big Four.

These days, he finds it easier to let go. In an interview in December last year, he told the Sunday Times he expected to really miss tennis, having only stopped because his failing body physically prevented him from playing any more.

He was anxious about ‘lots of stories of athletes who finish their career and within a year or 18 months they have spent all of their money or they are struggling with their mental health, so yeah, that was a concern, to be honest.

‘I spent time in the build-up [to retirement] talking to psychologists about how I was going to go about doing that.’

The great mental abyss never opened up, however. After quitting, he said: ‘I just have no desire to hit tennis balls any more. I did that for 25 years.’

Instead, he has been whacking golf balls, even suggesting he may try to qualify as an amateur for The Open next summer at St Andrews. In a podcast with seven-times world snooker champion Stephen Hendry, Sir Andy explained part of the appeal was having ‘that routine of something that I can play to try and get better at and it sort of filled a little bit of that void of the tennis routine and practice and stuff’.

His newfound passion for fairways and greens did not prevent him from stunning the tennis world months later by joining long-time rival Djokovic’s team as a coach for the Australian Open, although they later parted ways.

More recently, he has mentored Jack Draper part-time, although their work over the summer was brought to a premature close by an injury to the rising British star.

While he has not closed the door on coaching forever, his family and burgeoning business empire remain his primary focus, where thoughtful investing in premium brands such as Castore – set up by Liverpool brothers Tom and Phil Beahon – has helped him increase his fortune and allowed him to achieve his ambition to collaborate on his own AMC clothing line of stylish tennis wear.

He said: ‘I like the fact that they are a British brand, set up by two brothers, and that sustainability is important to them.

‘I think the most important thing is to be true to who you are. If a brand partnership doesn’t feel genuine, people can quite quickly see through that and it just doesn’t work.’

He is also an associate partner at a venture capital fund and has developed his own brands, such as Game4Padel, a company which builds padel courts – capitalising on the sport’s impressive boom in which Sir Andy has invested heavily.

Cromlix remains the jewel in the crown. The Murrays have been relentless in their drive to achieve perfection: the proprietary gin is created with botanicals grown on the 34-acre Cromlix estate – and much that finds its way onto the menu comes from the ‘kitchen garden’ just outside.

Viewers of the documentary, which will capture Cromlix’s third major revamp, will see much about the couple’s attention to detail but little about tennis. It hardly gets a look-in, apart from the umpire’s chair once used in a match between Sir Andy and Federer which stands watch over its outdoor court.

The mood is luxury woodland retreat with Barbour wellies and waxed jackets arranged in the entrance hall for guests’ use.

Even before the television cameras arrive, the Murrays’ hard work has already paid off – the 16-bedroom hotel clinched the AA Hotel of the Year award for Scotland for 2024-25.

Bursting with family pride, Sir Andy shared an image of his wife grasping the award and quipped on social media: ‘At least someone in the family can still win stuff.’

As he relaxes into his life beyond the demands of the tennis circuit, Sir Andy knows he too is still a winner. After all, retirement appears to have brought him something far more valuable than another trophy: contentment.