Thursday 4 August 2016 23:54, UK
Andy Murray says being chosen to carry the flag at the opening ceremony in Rio is the proudest moment of his career, although he has vowed to get some practice in before Friday night.
The defending Olympic champion and two-time Wimbledon winner was selected ahead of the likes of Nicola Adams to perform the role at the Maracana.
Murray was given the news late on Tuesday night by chef de mission Mark England and still sounded very emotional two days later.
"It's by far the proudest moment of my professional career. I never, ever thought I'd get the opportunity to do this and I'm just really, really proud," he said.
"To lead out your country at an Olympic Games is obviously a huge, huge moment in anyone's career and I'll remember it for the rest of my life."
Murray's first experience of the role did not go to plan, with the 29-year-old unable to get the flag in the right position at a photocall, much to the amusement of the Princess Royal and Lord Coe stood next to him.
At one stage Murray appeared in danger of spearing Princess Anne in the face.
"I'm going to blame the photographers for what happened because I was being given directions and ended up putting the flag in front of Princess Anne's face," added Murray.
"I didn't really know what to do. The flag's huge so as soon as I tipped the flag I was covering someone's face.
"Last night didn't go so well but I can see the funny side of it now and I'll try to get a bit of practice in before tomorrow night. Hopefully I'll do a better job."
As for what Princess Anne thought, Murray said with a smile: "I think she said, 'Just make sure you don't poke my eye out', or something along those lines. I hope she was okay, I didn't mean to do that."
Murray follows in the footsteps of his fellow Scot Sir Chris Hoy, who carried the Great Britain flag in London four years ago.
Hoy challenged Murray on Twitter to emulate him by shunning a holster and holding it in one hand.
"He is a big boy, I'm not quite as strong as him," said Murray. "I'm going to give it a go. I'll obviously do it with my left hand. I'm going to try to do it that way. It does look a little bit better."
Murray did not attend the ceremony in London because tennis is one of the first sports to feature and he did not want to impact his medal chances.
The world No 2 has already been told he will not have to play on Saturday and will instead play his first-round matches in both singles and doubles on Sunday.
In fact, Murray believes the delay will improve his chances of successfully defending his gold medal.
"The good thing is I'm not playing until Sunday. It's up to me to make sure I do everything properly to make sure it doesn't affect anything," he said.
"I'll have a good lie-in on Saturday, get a rest during the day tomorrow. I haven't gone through all of the details of what I have to do exactly but I'm sure we'll chat about that tonight and get all the timings sorted, make a good plan so it has no impact on my performance.
"But I see it as a huge positive, It's inspiring to get the opportunity to do something like that and I'm pretty sure it's going to help me over the next nine or 10 days."
Thursday's draw pitted Murray against Serbian Viktor Troicki, while the likes of David Ferrer and Kei Nishikori are likely to stand in the way of his path to the final.
