• Indian Wells

Murray's form fears after exit

Andy Murray went down in three sets to Milos Raonic at Indian Wells © Getty Images

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Andy Murray has admitted to fears about his form after conceding his fourth-round defeat to Milos Raonic at Indian Wells was "not good enough".

After surviving a scare to overcome Jiri Vesely in three sets on Monday, Murray looked to be making easier work of Raonic when he took the first set.

However the Briton lost the second set before dropping his serve twice to let a 2-1 lead in the third slip, eventually going down 4-6 7-5 6-3.

Murray arrived in California declaring he was finally close to feeling 100% fit again following his back surgery and a return to action at the Australian Open, but he said he was disappointed with his performance.

"The third set, that's concerning for me," Murray said. "The rest of the matches I have played since I have come back, I haven't been particularly concerned about them.

"Australia was good, Davis Cup was good, Acapulco was good. Today was fine until I went ahead in the third set, and then I was poor. It wasn't good enough.

"To get broken two consecutive times in that situation isn't good enough. I played poor tennis at that stage. I didn't make enough balls, missed easy shots.

"But like really easy shots, not like ones that are deep balls where you're just trying to get it back into play. There were some where he was standing at the net and I just had to hit it to the other side."

Murray was at a loss to explain the collapse. He said: "It wasn't like I was doing it the whole match. I was playing decent.

"Both of us didn't exactly have loads of opportunities on the other's serve until that middle part of the third set, so that's probably down to confidence.

"Because there is no other reason for missing shots like that, basic tennis shots that I would hope to make 99 times out of 100."

Indian Wells was Murray's fifth tournament since back surgery last September and came on the back of reaching the semi-finals in Acapulco two weeks ago, when he lost a tight match to Grigor Dimitrov.

"It shouldn't really be down to not playing enough matches. I feel like I've played enough," Murray added.

"Right now I'm not pulling up after matches stiff or sore or anything like that. So I think I'm match fit, match tight. Maybe I'm making some bad decisions in those situations.

"But I'll need to have a think about it and have a look at what happened. All of the shots kind of deserted me a bit."

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