Andy Murray jeered after Monte Carlo nightmare

Andy Murray's Eurpopean clay-court season began in calamatous fashion in front the millionaires of Monte Carlo as he slumped to a dismal defeat at the hands of little known German Philipp Kohlschreiber, winning just three games in the process.

So abject was Murray's performance that there were whistles and jeers from the crowd at the Rolex Masters as he left the court following his 6-2, 6-1 thrashing, which took just one hour and three minutes to execute.

It was the Scot's worst result since he lost by a similar margin to Marcos Baghdatis in the Cincinnati Masters three years ago. And he has now lost three consecutive games on the tour, having been eliminated in the first round of the Indian Wells tournament by Mardy Fish two weeks ago.

Murray is currently ranked fourth in the world, but if his current slump continues he is destined to tumble down the rankings, and that could well affect his seeding at the Grand Slam tournaments this summer.

More worryingly his game appears to have disintegrated since his assault on the Australian open title in January, when he played some wonderful tennis on the way to the final, only to lose to Roger Federer in the final.

Since then Murray's record is four wins and four losses - hardly the form of a Grand Slam contender.

Clay is also supposed to be the 22-year-old's preferred surface and he had actually requested a wild card entry to the Rolex Masters tournament in the hope of setting down a marker before the French Open, which starts next month, where he has never made it past the quarter finals.

After the game he produced a succinct analysis of his performance: "I was just rubbish. I played a rubbish match. I didn't play well and that was it. I played really, really badly."

But with all the attention focused on Murray's below par effort it was hard not to feel a pang of sympathy for his opponent, who was understandably proud to have claimed such a high-profile scalp.

"It was his first game on clay this year, so ... but maybe it was because I played so well, too," said the 26-year-old Kohlschreiber. ·