Andy Murray has experienced most things in tennis but the world No.2's eyes were opened to something new and just a little crazy this week as he witnessed the wacky world of doubles sign-in.
The two-times Grand Slam champion volunteered to sign in himself and fellow Scot Colin Fleming for the Paris Masters at Bercy and couldn't believe what he saw.
"It's the first time I've ever actually had to do it," Murray said, speaking a couple of days before he and Fleming lost their first-round match 6-2, 6-2 against Alexander Peya and Bruno Soares on Tuesday.
"Colin was back home because he didn't want anyone to know we were playing so I actually went in and did the doubles sign-in. It was absolute mayhem.
"Actually being in the room you can't believe it -- I've got a picture of it. [There is] a laptop with the time and it's basically like a countdown. You've got like six players in there, you have the Tour manager getting text messages and emails, people getting him to sign in for them, you've got other players signing in not for themselves but as a representative of another player. I've never done it before, it's pretty stressful."
Fleming joked that he had been concerned that Murray might find it all a bit strange, and he was right, with the world No.2 worried that by signing in with three minutes remaining, he had played his hand too soon.
And when two players got a bit hot under the collar over the use of a pen, Murray was a little stunned.
"One of the players asked Miro [Bratoev, the ATP Tour manager], 'Can I have a pen?' and he said, 'You're not allowed to use my pen, you're not allowed to use the Tour Manager's pen'," Murray added.
"There were two teams about to sign in, one of them had the pencil that was there and the other didn't have a pen so one of the other guys in the room, with 30 seconds to go, was throwing him a pen. There must be a better way of doing it. It can't be the best way."
While singles players are automatically entered for the mandatory ATP Masters 1000s, such as Paris, the sign-up process is different for doubles. If they don't use the advance entry system, two weeks ahead of time, they must enter by 2pm on a Saturday for tournaments that begin on the Monday.
As a rule, one of the players must be present but if that's not possible, they can also contact the ATP supervisor -- by email, text, phone, fax or any means possible -- and the supervisor can sign them in.
It is a process that can lead to the kind of scene Murray found at Bercy, further complicated by singles players signing in as close to the deadline as possible, often at the expense of more regular doubles players.
Murray saw the funny side of things and Eric Butorac, the head of the ATP Player Council, said the rule was actually there to help singles players.
"The reason we do it is for guys like him," he told ESPN. "A lot of the top guys don't know when they want to play ... Andy obviously didn't know he wanted to play two weeks ago, he knew now, so that's why we have the ability to do that.
"Sometimes it turns into a kind of chaos and I heard it was. [But] if there is a better way, we haven't found one. For guys like me, we would love to know in advance where we're going to go, but we also understand that the ability to have guys like Andy play doubles is so good for the tournament, fans want to see it.
"If not for this system, we wouldn't have had John Isner, we wouldn't have had Andy, we wouldn't have had some really cool stars [including Rafael Nadal] playing doubles. So there's no reason to change it when we're giving the fans what they want. It makes our lives a little chaotic but it's getting the best players in the world to play doubles, which is good."
The ATP told ESPN that it is happy with the current format.
"While we continually listen to the feedback of our player and tournament members, we believe the current system provides a good balance between catering to the needs of doubles players, while at the same time enabling the participation of singles players in the doubles draws," it said in an emailed statement.