Andy Murray survived a school shooting at the age of eight that took place in his hometown of Dunblane, Scotland, killing 16 children all between the ages of five and six. He said as he walked to the school gym, he heard shooting noises and quickly decided to duck under a desk in his principal's office, trying to hide.

All these details are revealed in the U.S. Open champion's new autobiography "Hitting Back." Murray, 25, aside from taking home the highest honor at the Open this week, also won Olympic gold in the London 2012 Games earlier this summer.

In "Hitting Back," the player also described how the school shooting affected him.

"Some of my friends' brothers and sisters were killed," he wrote. "I have only retained patchy impressions of that day, such as being in a classroom singing songs."

The shooter in the incident 16 years ago, Thomas Hamilton, was a scout leader in Murray's hometown and killed himself at the crime scene, even before revealing his motive behind his killing spree, The Inquisitr reported.

"The weirdest thing was that we knew the guy. He had been in my mum's car. It's obviously weird to think you had a murderer in your car, sitting next to your mum. That is probably another reason why I don't want to look back at it," Murray admitted. "It is just so uncomfortable to think that it was someone we knew from the Boys Club...Then to find out he's a murder was something my brain couldn't cope with. I could have been one of those children."

The March 1996 incident is considered one of the worst shootings to ever occur in the UK and it made the town of Dunblane "synonymous" with mass shootings, according to Radar Online.

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Us open, Andy murray