Britain’s Andy Murray missed three match factors as he suffered a first-round defeat by Alex de Minaur on the China Open.
The previous world primary misplaced 6-3 5-7 7-6 (8-6) in a tightly contested match in Beijing.
Murray led 5-2 within the third set and had two match factors on De Minaur’s serve, earlier than the Australian broke again as Murray served for the match.
The Scot missed one other match level within the tie-break as De Minaur prevailed.
It’s the 36-year-old’s fifth successive loss to De Minaur, who’s quantity 12 on the earth rankings.
Murray dedicated simply 13 unforced errors in contrast with the 16 of De Minaur, who will play both Tommy Paul or second seed Daniil Medvedev within the second spherical.
The 24-year-old turns into the fourth participant to beat Murray in 5 consecutive matches, in addition to Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.
Thursday’s defeat is the third time this 12 months Murray has been knocked out of a match within the opening spherical by De Minaur.
The Australian ended Murray’s possibilities of being seeded at Wimbledon with victory at Queen’s in July, earlier than an extra win on the Monte Carlo Masters.
On Friday, British primary Cameron Norrie faces fifth seed Andrey Rublev, whereas fellow Briton Dan Evans performs Italian sixth seed Jannik Sinner.
