Murray rues tactical errors

Andy Murray admits he could have done better tactically after tumbling out of the Madrid Open at the quarter-final stage last night.

Murray was the defending champion in the Spanish capital but his reign came to an end as he was knocked out in straight sets by fifth-seeded Argentinian Juan Martin Del Potro.

Del Potro, who had lost all three of his previous meetings with the new world number three heading into the contest, won the encounter 7-6 (7/4) 6-3 to seal a semi-final showdown with second seed Roger Federer later today.

Murray had his chances to take control of the match, most notably when serving for the first set at 5-3 up and at the start of the second set when he earned four break points, but he was not able to make the most of them and he found himself out of the tournament.

Despite the defeat, the British number one was able to take plenty of positives from his performances this week on his less-favoured clay surface, and admits one of the areas he will be looking at ahead of the French Open are his tactics.

“In the tie-break, I just got away from playing my game, I started taking balls on that weren’t there to be hit and I was hitting the ball with not a lot of height over the net, so therefore I made more mistakes but, yeah, I didn’t play my best game,” said Murray, who turned 22 yesterday.

“I came to the net like three times in the one game where I got broken and lost a point, so that means that I need to find the right balance between being aggressive and not getting away from my game style.

“I mean, I don’t play like (Roger) Federer plays, so I need to make sure that I stick to my game and I plan on having a good French Open.

“This week was good I had probably my best game on clay against (Tommy) Robredo and I thought I was hitting the ball well, it’s just that my tactics weren’t great.”