LEGENDS OF TENNIS!! IT’S SERENA WILLIAMS AND ANDY MURRAY in what remains THE GREATEST EVER BRIEF AND WONDROUS LIFE of a Wimbledon dream team…

The tantalizing pairing of Andy Murray and Serena Williams was fun as hell to watch — but so much more. Viva #MurRena!

On Wednesday, Andy Murray and Serena Williams were knocked out of the running for Wimbledon’s mixed doubles championship, losing (rather badly) to top-seeded pair Nicole Melichar and Bruno Soares: 6-3, 4-6, 6-2. Somehow, even the loss feels like a win.

On Tuesday evening, following their second win of the tournament, Murray and Williams sat down with reporters at the All England Lawn Tennis Club outside of London—two of the greatest players in history, side by side. They’d performed this ritual hundreds of times as solo acts, but here they were a united front, and reporters had plenty to cover.

They share a roiling, mostly inwardly-directed fieriness.

There was the article Williams published earlier Tuesday in Harper’s Bazaar explaining the emotional fallout of losing the U.S. Open last year to young gun Naomi Osaka — a match in which a now-infamous series of unusual code violations were leveled against Williams. There was every tedious detail of Murray’s nascent comeback from a hip surgery that could spell retirement. And then there was the question of how two tennis superheroes, among the biggest personalities on the tour, came to join forces in a segment of their sport that generally calls to mind retired couples in Boca.

“I was literally looking for some match play. So was Andy,” offered Williams in a typically direct, if not particularly expansive, answer. Last week she’d been more forthcoming, at least regarding their team name. After Murray tweeted, “Well that was fun …#SerAndy,” Williams told reporters: “My vote is still for MurRena.” On Tuesday, this came up, of course: Would a team meeting be needed to sort the issue out? Both players chuckled. “Serena’s the boss,” Murray said.

Tennis is often compared to boxing: Individuals square off, dealing physical blows that make explicit the mental war happening beneath the surface. For spectators, part of the thrill is the starkness of two players working against each other in isolation. A really good match can feel excruciatingly intimate, like listening in on someone else’s therapy session, the camera zooming in for close-ups of players’ anguish and ecstasy. From the release of every frustrated howl to the pump of every triumphant fist, Williams and Murray are among the most intense to ever play the sport.

The Scotsman recently called Williams “arguably the best player ever.” With his trademark dry wit, he added: “So she’d be a solid partner.” Serena is, after all, one of the most inspiring athletes ever to step foot on a field or a court of any kind. Her struggles and triumphs on the court feel both rapturously persona — a rare window into a superstar’s otherwise self-contained, private world — and somehow universal: Her battles to do her job at the highest level have felt like metaphors for many fans’.

In the so-called Big Four of the past 15 years — a golden era for men’s tennis — Murray has enjoyed the dubious honor of being the best player around not called Federer, Nadal, or Djokovich. In January, when Murray made it clear at the Australian Open could be his last tournament — he was scheduled for the hip surgery later that month — a sobering ripple was felt across the game. “It hits us top guys hard,” Federer said at the time. Roger is 37; Rafa, 33; Murray and Djokovic are the youngest of the group at 32. “We’re going to lose everybody at some point.”