Xinhua

Andy Murray admitted he could well have played his last ever Australian Open match after a ‘flat performance’ resulted in a straight-sets defeat.

Murray suffered yet another disappointing first round defeat as he was beaten 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 by 30th seed Tomas Martin Etcheverry.

While he went into the tournament with renewed vigour and hopes of a deep run, Murray revealed afterwards that he was ‘disappointed’ with his performance.

‘’Yeah, there's a definite possibility that will be the last time I play here,” Murray said post-match.

“Whilst you’re playing the match you're obviously trying to control your emotions, focus on the points and everything and then when you're one point away from the end it's like, ‘I can't believe it's over like so quickly and like this.’

“Walking off the court [I was] like ‘I wish I involved the crowd more’, and just disappointed with the way that I played and all that stuff. A tough, tough way to finish.’’

‘’It was a poor performance and very, very flat.

"There was an amazing crowd out there and I felt that they were trying to pick me up and get behind me and usually I would always engage the crowd and get them going, and bring some energy into the match, and it was really just a flat performance.’’

Murray admitted that a large part of his frustration lies with the fact that his recent performance during training sessions against the likes of Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic has not transferred over to actual matches.

‘’If I play like today, I won’t win many matches playing that way,’’ Murray said.

‘'Practice is not the same thing, I’m totally aware of that. I also know what good tennis is, and played well before.

In the last week, 10 days, I know how well I was playing against the best players in the world. That’s why it’s so frustrating on the match court. It’s not there.

“I’ve been telling myself that at some stage it will, but obviously when you have performances like today or a batch of results over a period of time like I have done, it’s tough to keep believing in that.’’

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