Murray - I'll learn from mistakes

Murray: right preparation

Also see

• Tennis Results
• ATP Schedule
• Tennis on Sky
• Messageboards

Despite his first-round exit in the Australian Open, Andy Murray believes that he will make his Grand Slam breakthrough sooner rather than later.

The world number nine fell at the first hurdle in Melbourne, Murray going out to unseeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 5-7 4-6 6-0 6-7 (5-7) after three hours of play on the Rod Laver Arena.

The result leaves Murray still looking to get past round four of a major in nine attempts, but the British number one is confident he can put the setback behind him and learn from the experience.

"I want to stay in the top 10," he said.

"Winning four tournaments in the last few years I know I've got the potential to challenge for Grand Slams in the future but I still have a little bit of inexperience and in that match that showed today.

"But the more Grand Slams I play and the more big matches I play, I'll learn from them and won't make the mistakes that I did today."

Unpredictable

The Scot admitted that he found the going tough against Tsonga, an unpredictable player who ended Tim Henman's Grand Slam career at last year's US Open and also beat Australia's Lleyton Hewitt on his way to making the semi-finals in Adelaide in the lead-up to the tournament.

"He's been like that since the juniors," Murray said of the big-hitting world number 38. "The most important thing is to get his serve back because he's obviously got a very good serve but I didn't make enough returns at the start of the match to have a chance of really breaking him.

"I didn't put enough returns in court with enough depth to let his inconsistency be a problem at the start of the match and it was only at the end when I started to do that.

"I felt worse a couple of years ago when I lost in the first round here and got absolutely smoked and physically was in bad shape.

"But (this year) I did all the right preparation and worked very hard on my game.

"I'm obviously disappointed that I didn't win the match but I gave it my best effort out there.

"You can come away from matches feeling less disappointed if you've given it everything you've got, you've prepared properly and you feel that you've improved as a tennis player."