Andy Murray has crashed out of the Australian Open after losing 7-5 6-4 0-6 7-6 (7-5) to Jo Wilfried Tsonga in the first round.

Tsonga immediately made his mark by making Andy save four break points in the opening game and successfully breaking in his second. Tsonga took full advantage of Murray's slow start and quickly raced to a two set lead. Andy did lead a comeback by dishing out a bagel in the third but Tsonga regrouped and the following set was tightly fought.

Highlights InterviewNeither men gained the advantage in the fourth set as it went to a tense tie-break where, typical to his match form, Murray crucially double faulted giving Tsonga the edge he needed to close out the match.

Murray talks about the match
I had six, seven days of preparation. I trained in the hot conditions. It was nothing to do with the physical thing why I lost the match.

The most important thing is to get his serve back because he's obviously got a very good serve but I didn't make enough returns at the start of the match to have a chance of really breaking him.

I didn't put enough returns in court with enough depth to let his inconsistency be a problem at the start of the match and it was only at the end when I started to do that.

I did all the right preparation, worked very hard on my game and I've improved a lot of my shots.

I'm obviously disappointed that I didn't win the match. I would have wanted to win more than anything. I gave it my best effort out there. But it's not the worst I've felt after a defeat.

The Scot, who had a realistic chance of getting very deep into the Slam, was on the back foot from the start and Murray's defeat to the Frenchman is ultimately due to his failure to perform.

Match facts - Murray vs Tsonga
- Murray won more points, 137-135

- Each player had seven aces

- Tsonga hit 57 winners but had 61 unforced errors

- Both men had fastest serves over 200kmh, Tsonga 214kmh, Murray 212kmh

- There were nine breaks of serve, five of them to Murray


Photo: Tsonga celebrates victory

After the draw was made, Andy was talking about the 2nd and 3rd round. I knew then that he'd lose to Tsonga.The 2nd round doesn't exist until you've dealt with the first.

He's 20.

Lloyd says it's a blip and he'll learn massively from it and bounce back even better.

I'm gutted this morning. Being in good quarter etc mean nothing if you can't get past R1!

But the way Tsonga played would not usually beat Murray so you have every reason to be disappointed.

Perhaps some kind of brain implant - it's amazing what they can do these days ...

... though I did think Tsonga was playing above his ranking, certainly good enough to beat Murray when he's in cruising-with-brain-disengaged mode, which he seemed to be for most of that match.

Well done, J-W.
Is there a TsongasWorld website somewhere ... ?

Perhaps a little bit of an over-optimistic assessment from the beeb:

It was a massively disappointing display by the Scot, who had gone into the tournament with realistic hopes of claiming his first Grand Slam title.

They didn't say which title .... personally I think he's got a good chance of claiming "Disappointment of the Tournament".
He's starting to have an impressive little collection of those.

Oh, so bitter ...  

Hmmmmm...

I think that's a little unfair given the fact that he is top ten in the world and won his first tournament of the season. Yes, AO is a massive disappointment and a cock-up, and he should be more disappointed in himself than he seems to be, but it's not the end of the world...