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[Sunniii]

Good point there, the Masters and Slams are where he is going to catch the top 3 now.

I feel now that we are at a stage where we cant read too much into the results between andy and the top players at smaller events becuase there is added motivation at masters and slams. Andy has to show he can beat these guys in IW and Miami like he beat Nadal at the US Open and Djokovic in the two masters before that.

Rafa and Roger especially put their emphasis on masters and slams and Andy needs to do that now in the build up to IW.

[Sunniii]

They all still have to play some of the smaller events too, they can't just concentrate on the Masters and Slams, I for one am looking forward to Rotterdam.

Yes kitkat im looking forward to rotterdam but the main emphasis for Murray now has got to be on masters series and especially slams. We all know he can win these events but he needs to now show he can win consistently on the big stages such as slams and masters series broadcasted worldwide infront of 14000 crowds (IW capacity I think). Cincinnati and Madrid showed is he can do it but this year and now especially after losing early at AO. He has to show the kind of consistency he started to show last year if he is to challenge the top 3 ranking places. ATM he is currently comfortably 4th and that is no mean feat but he needs to get a bit closer, something which he can only acheive with the bigger events.

[Mark]

Andy Murray admits he is disappointed, but says being the tournament favourite did not affect his performance.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/7850927.stm#id7850000/7850900

[Joe]

Rotterdam is a 500? Wow, that's great.

IW and Miami will be good to gauge Andy's form, he went from SF in both in 2007 to poor showings against Haas and Ancic in Miami. Did he really reach R4 in IW, I remember he beat Karlovic and Melzer, did he get a bye perhaps?

Yep, the top 32 get byes at IW and Miami.

[KitKat]

Kitkat,

what i'm trying to say is the emphasis for Andy has got to switch from consistently winning the smaller events to consistently competing at the bigger ones. He has shown he is capable of beating he big players on big occasions but now he has to put that all together and show he can consistently emulate his success on the big stage and the word i stress is consistency. I totally agree that he should play Rotterdam but the focus for me is not on winning that, its about working on a way to compete CONSISTENTLY better at the big tournaments and the way to do this is to follow the lead of the top 3. We know andy's talent is wonderful, better than Nole's you could say, but Andy has to learn like Nadal, Fed and Nole to win big matches when not playing well like he did at the US Open against Melzer.

by world number 4 standards, last 16 is an early exit.

Ah right, I thought that the fact that he reached the final of the last Slam, winner of 2 of the last 3 Masters, QF's of the 3rd and the semis in his first attempt at the year end tournament was consistent, not forgetting that he was second only to Nadal in the amount of tournaments he won in 2008, he has been unbeaten this year until the Verdasco match, which we know he wasn't 100% at due to illness, what the hell do you want from him? Blood!!!  

[Sunniii]

Ah right, I thought that the fact that he reached the final of the last Slam, winner of 2 of the last 3 Masters, QF's of the 3rd and the semis in his first attempt at the year end tournament was consistent, not forgetting that he was second only to Nadal in the amount of tournaments he won in 2008, he has been unbeaten this year until the Verdasco match, which we know he wasn't 100% at due to illness, what the hell do you want from him? Blood!!!  

HAHA no. As i said we know he can do it but he has to show now he can do it over the full year at the bigger events. He cant put too much into the smaller events which may tire him out in the big events is essencially what i'm saying. We saw last year by the tim ehe played Nalbandian in Paris, he was knackered.

He won a fair few titles last year but he won alot of smaller events.

[top_spin]

Im not intending on making up excuses but surely his illness is a major reason for his loss along side Vedasco playing the tennis of his life.

Verdasco was not playing the tennis of his life.

His serving was unbelievable but that's about it, won him the match, seen him play so much better.

[Sir Panda]

Verdasco was not playing the tennis of his life.

His serving was unbelievable but that's about it, won him the match, seen him play so much better.

Verdasco IS playing the tennis of his life, but today he wasn't as impressive as he was against Stepanek or in the earlier rounds.

His FH and serve were phenomenal, thought his BH was good as well, Andy tried to break it down but it didn't happen.

It was a poor match with some bright spots, I have never enjoyed watching a Murray/Verdasco encounter, they are always tense.