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Murray falls apart in Indian Wells

Andy Murray looked out of sorts as Robin Soderling advanced © Getty Images

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An out-of-sorts Andy Murray has crashed out of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells at the quarter-final stage as Robin Soderling progressed with a 6-1 7-6 victory.

Murray looked second best and second rate in all areas until he finally staged a fightback late in the second set but it was too little, too late. Soderling continued his strong form in the tournament and Murray would have had to have been near his best to beat the Swede on the day, but he was nowhere near the required level.

There had been questions as to whether Murray had been tested enough leading into the match, and there appeared to be truth to those claims as he took an age to get going.

Soderling took nine minutes to serve out the opening game, during which Murray had a slight slip, and after that Murray looked uncomfortable and withdrawn, constantly looking at his feet and fidgeting with his clothes and shoes.

"I think he played very well to start with, and I didn't," said Murray. "I didn't move particularly well. I was hitting the ball really short, and he's obviously got a big game and he was able to dictate all of the points.

"So from my side it was poor, but he hit the ball really big from the back of the court and served well when he needed to."

It should have been a chess-match between the shot-maker in Soderling and the ball-retriever in Murray, but the world No. 4's athletic qualities were apparently absent as Soderling raced to a 5-0 lead. Murray barely managed to hold serve, finally managing to get on the scoreboard in the sixth game, much to the delight of the fans, who tried to lift him all the way.

But Soderling grabbed an early break in the second set and continued where he left off in the first, playing aggressively and capitalising on Murray's short shots to dictate play. Murray showed his first signs of life when he earned three break points with the score at 3-2 to Soderling, but the No. 6 seed won five points in a row to hold serve.

Then, with Soderling trying to serve out the match at 5-4, Murray created another opening and secured break point with the shot of the match, reading Soderling's mid-court smash and returning a backhand from deep behind the baseline all the way down the line and into the very corner of Soderling's court.

Murray finally started to get animated on his mini-roll, but Soderling has a new mental strength and he held strong to power home in the tie-break.

In the other quarter-final, Andy Roddick continued his relatively smooth progression into the last four with a 6-3 7-5 win over Tommy Robredo.

Roddick achieved an unbelievable statistic on his first serve, winning 35 out of 36 (97%) of points when his first effort was in. The big-serving American might possibly be tired of seeing that moniker next to his name, but he gives the media little choice with performances such as this.

Robredo couldn't create so much as a break point on Roddick's serve, and the world No. 8 took the single opportunity he created in each set to clinically extend his record over the Spaniard to 11-0.

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