Murray says he was 'unprofessional' as Olympics bid fails

ANDY Murray last night held his hands up and admitted that an untimely lapse in professional standards contributed to a bitterly disappointing early exit from the Olympic Games.

He said he had failed to prepare as well as he should but, he was also hamstrung by a sibling partnership which looked ill at ease throughout last night's thrashing at the hands of French pairing Arnaud Clement and Michael Llodra.

The British No 1 and his brother Jamie had struggled in their opening doubles match against the Canadians on Monday night and had to fight back. Once again they went behind but this time were was no way back. Losing in straight sets, 6-1, 6-3, in a match that was as one-sided as the scoreline suggests, it took the 2007 Wimbledon doubles champions just 66 minutes to end their Olympic foray.

It was a quick fall from grace for Andy, who had arrived in Beijing, straight from his first ATP Masters Series win in Cincinnati. However, he said that victory was a factor in his performances in China.

"I found that the day after my first matches I had lost four and a half kilos since I arrived here and I was struggling, not so much with the heat but because I didn't prepare for the matches as well as I should have done after all the flying and stuff which was unprofessional on my part. Again it's something I have to learn from and make sure it doesn't happen again.

"Ideally I would have liked to get here earlier but I didn't because I played so well in Cincinnati.

"Normally I weigh myself before the start of each tournament, which I should have done here instead of the day after my match, because I need to make sure that I'm maintaining my weight and not getting too dehydrated and that I'm eating well enough. If you do that you might still be tired or not at your best on the court but at least you have given yourself the best chance to do well."

As it was he gave an under par performance to lose in the first round of the singles, and neither he nor his brother performed well in the doubles.

"We definitely can play better than that," said the 21-year-old. "We didn't serve well, didn't return very well and I don't think we had a break point the whole match. But we haven't played together all that much and they have played a lot together and its something in the future we will look to do before we play in the big tournaments."

It looked a more and more fraught partnership the longer the match progressed.

Jamie lost serve in the fourth game of the first set and Andy followed suit in the sixth game, although he had won his first service game. Taking just one point on the French pairing's service, they capitulated 6-1.

The second was not much better. They lost the third game and never recovered, and Jamie eventually dropped his serve in the ninth to love to seal the deal.

With the match and their Olympics officially over – in truth it had been over for a long time before that final shot was played – the elder Murray let his emotions show, giving vent to his frustrations by lashing the ball high out the court.

He then stormed off, leaving his brother to pick up his bag. Now, though, with the US Open starting a week on Monday and Andy involved in the singles, while his brother will join up with Max Mirnyi in the doubles, it's about recovery.