Ben Stiller is still mortified by his performance at an exhibition tennis match in 2013.
During an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday night, the Severance director discussed how he has enjoyed watching the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
But while Ben is a big sports fan, he confessed that he still has nightmares about the time an eight-year-old girl beat him during a doubles tennis match he played with Rafael Nadal and Juan Martín del Potro at Madison Square Garden nearly a decade ago.
"About halfway through the match, Nadal stops and he goes, 'Wait, should we make it doubles?'" the actor recalled, before explaining how the tennis ace invited him onto the court. "He pulls me out of the crowd. It's like a dream come true to be in Madison Square Garden and people start cheering and it's also this nightmare that's happening simultaneously because I realise I really don't play tennis. I'm dressed in street clothes. Usually, I wear tennis shoes but, ironically, I'm wearing leather shoe boots."
Del Potro then proceeded to invite a little girl to join them on the court.
"Immediately, I just died inside because I knew there was no way to get out of this thing alive. Because if I hit a winner on the eight-year-old girl everybody hates me and I don't have enough skill to hold it back because I'm all or nothing," the 56-year-old continued. "So, Nadal serves it and the eight-year-old girl hits it back perfectly across the net, the crowd cheers. It comes to me, boom, right into the net... Basically, we played four more points, every time the girl hits it, (the crowd) cheers. Every time I hit it back into the net. And Del Potro puts the girl on his shoulders, they're cheering. I didn't make eye contact with Nadal, my wife, anybody."
However, Ben went on to joke that he is now ready for a rematch.
"The good thing that came out of this is that I resolved to become the best tennis player in the world. If it ever happens in life that someone pulls me out of the crowd to go play tennis with them, which will probably never happen again," he laughed.
