The two greats, who called time on their respective illustrious careers in 2024, reunited at the latter’s tennis facility in Mallorca, the ‘Rafa Nadal Academy’, to celebrate its tenth anniversary.

Murray was invited by Nadal to join the festivities in a jokey social media video, with the Spaniard offering a “golf match” since the Scot had been “practising like a professional”.

The invite then moved into tennis talk, with Murray, the three-time Grand Slam champion, encouraged to gather some of his “friends” together for an exhibition event in Manacor.

The two-time Wimbledon winner showed up, visiting the academy for the third time after his 2016 practice session and 2019 appearance at the ‘Rafa Nadal Slam’.

Here, the pair took part in the ‘Rafa Nadal Academy Slam’, which featured two teams captained by the two legends of the sport, who share 25 major honours between them.

Murray headed up ‘Team Murray’, which was made up of a European contingent containing Marat Safin, Dominic Thiem and Fabio Fognini.

Nadal was joined by Carlos Moya, Richard Gasquet and David Ferrer in a star-studded lineup.

The format was simple - doubles matches, disappointingly, so no singles reunion for Nadal and Murray - with the games to be decided by 10-point tiebreaks.

All players played with each other to form multiple doubles pairs throughout the afternoon on the academy’s acrylic.

There was a crowd of nearly 2000 people that watched on as Moya and Gasquet seized the opening rubber, before Murray and Thiem were on hand to level proceedings.

The Austrian then joined forces with Fognini to defeat Gasquet and Ferrer in a tight encounter and edge Murray’s side ahead, but the Scot and Safin were powerful to avoid a whitewash against the home favourites, as Nadal and Gasquet swept past them 10-0.

Spanish duo Ferrer and Moya were victorious later on to equalise the scorecards, but Murray and Fognini - who had an infamous spat at the Shanghai Masters in 2019 - teamed up to put the Briton’s team on the brink of victory, beating Nadal and Moya, who bounced back to claim the deciding point and ultimately, the title.

“We’ve known each other since we were very young,” Murray said of Nadal afterwards.

“The first times I saw him play in tournaments, he was different. In the way he played, but also in his attitude, his concentration and his maturity, even though he was only 13 or 14.

“It was partly thanks to him that I went to train in Spain for two years, starting when I was 15. I moved to Barcelona after talking with him at those tournaments.

“I had asked him: ‘What does a week look like for you?’ He replied: ‘I go to school in the morning, then I train for two or three hours. I hit with [Carlos] Moya, among others.’

“Then he asked me the same question. I replied: ‘I train for an hour, three times a week, with my mother.’ That’s when I understood that I had to change something.”