Andy Murray suffered his earliest elimination from a Grand Slam event for five years as he lost to 15th seed Kevin Anderson in the US Open on Monday evening.
The Scot went down in four sets to the giant South African with the booming serve, 7-6 (7-5) 6-3 6-7 (2-7) 7-6 (7-0).
"Obviously that's many years' work that's gone into building that sort of consistency. To lose that is tough," reflected Murray, who prior to the fourth round encounter at Flushing Meadow had reached the quarter-finals of the last 18 Grand Slam tournaments.
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Losing to the 6ft 8in Anderson was Murray's worst result in one of tennis's big four tournaments since crashing out of the 2010 US Open, and it capped a bad night for British tennis as Jo Konta lost to Petra Kvitova in her women's singles match.
The pair had been hoping to have a British man and woman in the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam event for the first time in 38 years, but instead there will be neither for the first time in five years.
Murray had been beaten Anderson in five of their previous six matches – including their clash at Queen's in June – but in the Louis Armstrong Stadium the power of the South African's serve was too much for the Scot, and his frustration grew as his returns failed to find their mark.
According to the BBC, Murray "smashed his racquet" at one moment (giving what remained of it to a spectator) and also argued with an umpire. He was irked when Anderson disappeared off court for a six-minute break and there was a testy exchange with the umpire as Murray expressed his irritation at the length of the interruption.
Though the world number three threatened to claw his way back into the match by winning the third set, he couldn't sustain his momentum in the fourth set and lost the tie-break 7-0. "I felt like I had my opportunities there but didn't manage to capitalise on them," said Murray, who was cheered on by among other former England midfielder Frank Lampard. "When you're playing against players that are at that level, like him, you need to obviously make them think and then give them a chance to get nervous."
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