Will Andy Murray ever win a grand slam tournament?

Andy Murray produced one of the worst performances of his career, and his opponent Marin Cilic one of the best of his, as the 22-year-old Scot fell in straight sets in the fourth round of the US Open at Flushing Meadows last night.

With the a fair draw at his mercy, Murray, No 2 seed in the side of the competition that featured a injured Rafael Nadal as the only real opponent of note between him and a repeat of last year's final against Roger Federer, was beaten 5-7, 2-6, 2-6 by a player who had never beaten a Top 3 opponent before.

And yet the match could have turned out so differently. Murray had two set points in the 10th game of the first set, which even with the effervescent Cilic on top form, would have given him a platform to build towards victory.

Instead the Scot meekly surrendered the advantage, then underwent a shocking winless sequence of six successive games that threw away the set and handed the Croat two breaks of service in the next set, essentially breaking the spine of the match for Cilic. Murray lost his first service game in the final set, and the rest of the match rapidly ran away from him.

The No 16 seed Cilic, who appeared afterwards as shocked as everyone by the ease of his victory over a player who he had never beaten before, will now play Argentina's Juan Martín del Potro, an encounter already being dubbed the Clash of the Giants, as both men stand at 6ft 6in.

Murray meanwhile has a lot of questions to answer. The US Open was always supposed to be his best chance of a grand slam, and his form in the run-up to this year's event was excellent. But yesterday he was outplayed and out-thought by Cilic, and didn't seem to have the ability to change his game to counter the threat posed by the Croat when he played a different game to that which Team Murray expected.

There is now a four-month wait until the next grand slam, the Australian Open next January, and Murray, who will probably slip back to third spot in the world rankings at some point, will need to reevaluate his game or risk turning into Tim Henman, another British player who promised a lot but failed to deliver when it mattered. ·