ROLAND GARROS — It has the makings of a workplace sitcom, with Andy Murray flashing deadpan looks to camera as Jack Draper and Dan Evans get into their latest row.

“He could argue about anything!” explains Evans, who despite being 34 is an Olympic debutant and does not fancy spending too long in bed when there is so much to see.

“I don’t sleep much but if you’re in a week like this you’ve got to go round and see things. Sleeping is boring. Go and see what’s happening!”

Along with Neal Skupski, Joe Salisbury and Cameron Norrie, there are six tennis players in all staying in one of the Olympic village’s fairly basic apartments, split across four bedrooms. Remarkably, Draper, despite being the youngest in the team by a full decade, is the only one with a room to himself downstairs, while the elder statesmen in their 30s bunk up on the upper floor having lost the draw of lots.

The communal living, the norm at tournaments for most residents of the village, is a real novelty for tennis players, who will often stay in the same hotels but rarely in the same apartment and never in the same room.

Draper is the exception, because he shares a flat in Putney with Paul Jubb, but the nature of the job means they don’t spend much time together unless, as they were last summer, they both happen to be injured.

At least there are no arguments about the washing up. The apartments will be retrofitted after the Games with kitchens so they can be sold as homes, but at present all the food is served centrally. With minimal living space, bedrooms morph into social spaces during the day, and sometimes late in the evening, it transpires.

“Jack’s not actually in our room but he keeps coming up to our room,” says Murray, noting that his four children, all under the age of nine, have a similar habit.

“It’s been fun. It’s just always when you’re part of a team and you’re not used to that everyone has different habits.

“Some of the guys prefer staying up late, some want to have a bit more of their own space, some are tidy, some are messy.”

Murray thinks that if anyone is the problem, it’s him – “I’m tidy in comparison to my children but probably messy in comparison to most adults” – although Evans was quick to defend him.

“I thought Andy would be a disgrace, untidy,” he said. “But he keeps his shit to the side together. We’re pretty lucky actually.”

The sleep schedules are more of a problem. Salisbury falls asleep listening to audiobooks (“it’s odd,” complains Evans) and seems to spend most of the day in bed, while Skupski, Evans and Murray are early to bed and early to rise.

Evans says: “He [Draper] can get after it at some strange times. He wants to have a full-blooded argument at like 11 o’clock when we’re trying to settle down.

“He storms in because he’s been sitting on his bed for about four hours and wants to get fired up when we’re ready to go.”

To give Draper his right of reply, he has been unimpressed by Evans making noise when he gets up at 7.30am. “It’s not even that early,” he defends.

Maybe the older lads should let Draper in on their “Top Trumps” style game where you have to name someone you have played against and guess their career-high ranking and whether they have been top 50 or not, with a points scale for correct answers.

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Even by tennis standards, it’s pretty nerdy. Murray, the ultimate tennis nerd, beats Evans and Skupski handily most nights. Usually, Uno is the card game of choice in Team GB but no one appears to have brought a deck.

The other time-passing activity is the pin-collecting. Every country is issued with a set of pins bearing their own emblem, and it becomes a challenge at every Games to swap with other countries and collect as many of them as possible.

Murray is up to about 60 already and is determined to “catch them all”, even putting out a public appeal on the Team GB social media accounts. Dutch player Robin Haase wanted to help out with one from the Netherlands and gave it to Evans to pass on.

When a text appeared on Murray’s phone asking if he had received it, it was the first he heard of it. Evans had pocketed the pin.

“They’re playing dirty,” Murray says.

For all the complaints, the players seem to be relishing the chance to live a little bit like students. Professional tennis players from their teenage years, none of them – Texas Christian University graduate Cameron Norrie aside – got the chance to live that life.

And the international element of the village turns it into one big (alcohol-free) freshers week, one that will be memorable for all of them, but Murray in particular, this being his last tournament as a professional.

“We’re cycling around the village and just being part of it,” Murray says.

“Sometimes just walking through the village, I’m like, ‘Yeah like this is what I’m going to miss.

“I’m going to miss being part of these tournaments and these events and it’s really special being here.”