Murray exits Dubai Open

Tennis : Andy Murray believed his failure to put an early dent in Nikolay Davydenko's confidence was the cause of his straight-sets exit from the Dubai Open this afternoon.

The 20-year-old frequently lost his temper and was in the end comprehensively out-hit by the Russian world number five in a 7-5 6-4 quarter-final defeat.

It was a far cry from the Scot's glorious first-round win over world number one Roger Federer as Davydenko refused to be ground down by Murray's persistence.

 "I'm a bit disappointed purely because I had a lot of chances," Murray said afterwards. "Early in the first set I had a couple of break points, and against someone like him, once he starts to get comfortable from the baseline, he's really tough to beat."

He added: "For me the most important one chance was the second game of the match. I think against a top player if you can stamp your authority early and get ahead, you're obviously going to start to relax and they're going to try to up their game, and especially here where the ball flies they can start to make mistakes."