Verdasco Was Just Too Good, Says Murray

Murray, who was bed ridden and medicated last week, was beaten by Verdasco for the first time in six matches

Andy Murray refused to blame a slight illness for his Australian Open fourth round loss to Fernando Verdasco, instead stating the Spaniard's serve and all round play had been too good on the day.

Murray, who was bed ridden and medicated last week, was beaten by Verdasco for the first time in six matches with the 14th seed running out a 2-6 6-1 1-6 6-3 6-4 victory.

The 21-year-old Briton had been one of the pre-tournament favourites and tipped to become the first British men's grand slam champion since Fred Perry in 1936.

"I didn't feel terrible at all," Murray told reporters. "If you're sick, there's some things you can't do as well as you might like, but you just have to deal with it.

"If you go on the court and play, then you do everything that you can with what you've got.

"If I say that I'm sick and it affected me, I know it's going to be like, 'well, he's making excuses for losing'.

"I don't feel that was the reason why I lost. I definitely did have my chances. He played too well."

Murray added the left handed Verdasco had served "incredible" when he needed to in the fourth and fifth sets.

"He served huge. He started serving like, 215 (kph) plus on a lot of his first serves," said Murray.

"The fourth set, I think he served like 93 percent first serves.

"The consistency of his first serve was pretty awesome for the last two, three sets.

"A lot of times he's sort of just kicking the serve in and putting a lot of slice on it and not going for too much.

"But he started to go for it huge in the fourth and fifth sets. He served very well when he was behind, which he hadn't done against me in the past."

Verdasco had won only one set in his five previous meetings against Murray but on Monday he barely put a foot wrong as he condemned the Briton to his first defeat of the 2009 season.

"When I did have the break points, I think he made a first serve on every one. I think he served two aces," added Murray.

"It's difficult to be defensive when that happens.

"The one point where I did get in, he hit a very good first serve. My first return went to his forehand, and he just moved me from side to side.

"That's what he does very well. You can't go for winners from three, four metres behind the baseline.

"Like I said, if I could have got closer to the baseline, I would have had a better chance but he hit the ball too big.

"I wasn't necessarily expecting him to serve that well because it's not something that he's known for.

"But when he serves like that, he's going to be very tough to beat... (and) sometimes you've just got to say too good, and he played better than me."