Having busted a gut to make it to the ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 in London, Andy Murray suffered one of the worst defeats of his career at the hands of a rampaging Roger Federer, who crushed the Scot 6-0 6-1 in under an hour.
In the end Murray was relieved to have won a single game, and the "morale sapping" defeat leaves the Scot back at square one, says the Daily Telegraph.
"The one-sidedness of this match underlined what we already knew: that Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal have been playing in their own elite mini-league all year. Now Murray will need to kick-start his career all over again if he wants to catch up," says the paper.
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The complexities of the round-robin format meant that Murray was knocked out of the tournament after losing the first set and everything after that "was an exercise in damage limitation", says The Guardian. But there was still plenty of damage.
"In his worst nightmare Andy Murray could not have imagined his season would end like this, Roger Federer taking him to the cleaners in front of his home fans who stood and applauded the Swiss to the rafters for his excellence, and rightly so."
Murray, writing for the BBC, said he had learnt a "very harsh lesson". Before winning his solitary game in the second set the Scot appeared to be heading towards a 'double bagel' scoreline - 6-0 6-0. "It was the first time I'd been in that position in my whole career and I hope it never happens again," he said.
He added that the nature of the defeat could lead him to reassess his winter training programme ahead of the Australian Open in January.
Reflecting on a turbulent year in which Murray has returned from back surgery, split with his coach Ivan Lendl, appointed Amelie Mauresmo and failed to win a tournament until his end-of-season charge to London, Murray noted: "The surgery made me realise that while you're away the game moves on even in the space of a few months.
"The other guys continue to make slight improvements, your level drops and they just get a bit further away from you. To catch up with them takes time and, in my case, this year I ran out of time."
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