Andy Murray crashed out of the Monte Carlo Masters with a straight-sets defeat to Switzerland’s Stanislas Wawrinka which saw him win only three games.
The US Open champion and world number two started his clay court season against Eduoard Roger-Vasselin, securing a two-set second-round win on Wednesday.
But he had no answer to the power of Wawrinka in a 6-1 6-2 defeat which lasted less than an hour on Monte Carlo’s Court Central.
After holding serve in the opening game Murray had a break point in the second but was the first to lose his delivery in the next as Wawrinka edged 2-1 ahead.
Murray was 15-40 down when his opponent hit a forehand service return well out.
But Murray netted the next point to drop his serve and trail the Swiss.
Wawrinka consolidated the break by winning his serve to 30 to lead 3-1 when Murray hit a backhand return long.
In the next game, Murray left a backhand passing shot from Wawrinka which just caught the line and after a double fault was again 15-40, hitting the next point out on a volley at the net to trail 4-1.
Murray admitted his poor start to the match had allowed Wawrinka to take charge.
“When I started making a lot of errors he was able to dictate all of the points from there,” Murray said in the post-match press conference.
“If you take your foot off the gas you don’t give any power in your shots to dictate the points to your opponent.”