Andy Murray has suffered another first-round elimination, this time at the Cologne Indoors at the hands of out-of-form veteran Fernando Verdasco.
Verdasco exploited Murray’s fragile serve to win 6-4 6-4 in a match which finished after midnight German time.
Verdasco, at 36 one of the few players older than the 33-year-old Murray in the tournament, broke Murray’s serve four times – once to love and three times to 15.
Murray lost in the second round of the US Open and in the first round of the French Open. He used wild cards for both of those grand slam tournaments and again in Cologne for his first loss on an indoor hard court since the 2015 tour finals.
Verdasco ended a four-match losing run going back to January in the Australian Open.
It was the Spanish player’s second match since the tour resumed amid the coronavirus pandemic, his first being a one-sided loss to Damir Dzumhur in qualifying for the Rome Masters last month.
Former world No.1 Murray conceded he needs to return to playing his own game.
“I need to get back to playing my game on the court, I’ve kind of gone away from that a little bit,” he said.
“I’m maybe making a few more mistakes than usual because of that.”
The Scot admitted there were “a lot of things” he would need to improve.
“I need to practice, I need to play matches and physically I need to get better,” he said.
Verdasco will take on top-seeded Alexander Zverev in the second round after the German player had a bye in the first round.
In other matches, No.8 seed Marin Cilic beat lucky loser Marcos Giron 6-2 4-6 6-3 to set up a match with Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, who defeated Finnish qualifier Emil Ruusuvuori 7-5 6-4.
Big-serving South African Lloyd Harris accounted for Kyle Edmund 7-5 7-6 (7-1), while No.2 seed Roberto Bautista Aguttakes on Gilles Simon after the veteran French player swept past Marton Fucsovics 6-0 6-3.