"I haven't lost many matches like that in my career"
Thursday 20 April 2017 18:23, UK
Andy Murray says he has made "progress" from where he was 10 days ago despite suffering a shock exit from the Monte Carlo Masters on Thursday.
The world No 1 suffered a surprise loss to 15th seed Albert Ramos-Vinolas and admitted he would have accepted a third-round defeat 10 days ago.
Murray, who was returning from injury at the tournament having been sidelined with an elbow problem since March 12, was 4-0 up in the deciding set before the Spaniard hit back to reach the quarter-finals for the first time.
"If I'd been offered this result a week, 10 days ago, I would've taken it," Murray told Sky Sports.
"I didn't know if I was going to be able to play here or not. For me personally - it's not going to seem it to everyone watching - but it's progress from where I was 10 days, a couple of weeks ago.
"I'm going to need to put some work in, there are something things I need to improve upon. But it wasn't too bad."
Murray's serving woes continued as he was broken seven times during the back and forth encounter.
The Scot started his second-round match against Gilles Muller on Wednesday with three double faults in the first four points of the match and it did not get much better in his match-up against clay-specialist Ramos-Vinolas.
Murray, who was making just his second appearance since a second-round loss to Vasek Pospisil at Indian Wells in early March, was not too concerned with his serve.
"If you"re serving for two weeks 30, 40, 50 kilometres an hour slower than what you're used to, you're going to serve slightly differently and then when you start serving fast again it just takes a bit of time to get into a rhythm," added Murray, a three-time Monte Carlo semi-finalist.
"I felt like - even though I didn't hold serve that much today - that I served better than I did in my last match. Second serve had a little bit more speed on it, less double faults, a few more aces.
"That's something that I think will keep getting better. I was really happy with how my elbow felt this week. It got better each day. I'm going to need to obviously improve my serving over the next few weeks."
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