Murray heartened despite defeat

ANDY MURRAY came up short when playing his first world top-five opponent in well over two years, but was still heartened by the latest stage of his singles comeback. The double Wimbledon champion lost 6-2, 7-6 to Austria’s Dominic Thiem in the quarter-finals of the China Open in a match brimming with high-class rallies. Murray then admitted his desire to play more attacking tennis in order to preserve his body had left him in two minds when facing a fired-up player ranked No 5. ‘I was a little bit unsure how to go about the match at the beginning,’ said Murray (right). ‘I was feeling a bit tired in the morning. We talked about maybe: “If you are feeling that way, try to finish off some points quicker”. I went a bit off track there in terms of how I was playing but the week, overall, was good.’ Murray, who came into the net and teed off on his forehand, is still trying to perfect a method that will avoid him getting sucked into too many gruelling baseline battles. He did beat world No 13 Matteo Berrettini earlier in the week and is now halfway through a run of four tournaments that next sees him play the Shanghai Masters. One player he will not be seeing there is Rafael Nadal, who yesterday confirmed he is pulling out of the final Chinese event. The official reason was continuing problems with his hand and wrist, although the US Open champion has had long-standing plans to get married to fiance Xisca Perello during this relatively quiet month.