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Murray humbled by clay court king Nadal in Hamburg

15/05/2008

British number one Andy Murray has been knocked out of the Hamburg Masters after losing 6-3 6-2 to Rafael Nadal.

Comfortable wins over Dmitry Tursunov and Gilles Simon in the previous rounds gave Murray optimism of upsetting arguably the best clay-court player in the world in Nadal.

But it was one way traffic in truth and Nadal, who has won the last three French Opens, used his powerful back-court game to consistently breach the Murray defence.

The Spaniard broke early in the first set to lead 3-1 and when Murray failed to convert two break point chances he had 3-4 down the set was over. Nadal broke Murray for a second time to take the set 6-3.

Murray got off to the best possible start in the second set as he broke Nadal at the start of the second set. But the 21-year-old – who was celebrating his birthday – threw away the advantage straight away. He lost his serve immediately and looked a deflated figure from there on.

The Scot could not live with the crunching baseline shots that were coming from Nadal and the world number two broke Murray two more times to wrap up the set and join Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer in the next round.

Murray will now turn his attentions to the French Open at Roland Garros which get underway a week on Sunday May 25th.