Andy Murray stays upbeat after David Ferrer defeat

ANDY MURRAY was able to take plenty of positives from his Madrid Open campaign this week, despite falling at the quarter-final stage.

Murray's hopes of setting up a semi-final clash with top seed Roger Federer came to an end as he fell to a 7-5, 6-3 defeat to in-form Spaniard David Ferrer following a gruelling late-night encounter that lasted two hours and 11 minutes.

Murray was encouraged, though by his performances, having been struggling for form coming into the tournament.

The world No.4 had lost five of his 10 matches since reaching the Australian Open final at the start of the year but enjoyed victories over Juan Ignacio Chela and Victor Hanescu before producing another good per- formance against clay court specialist Ferrer.

Murray said: "It's been very good. The first two matches were obviously great to win.

"Tonight's match was not one I was necessarily expected to win, but over two hours for a 7-5, 6-3 match kind of suggests that it was very close.

"There were a lot of rallies, I had my chances, he had his. He's played a lot of matches on the clay this year so maybe it's normal that he might have played a bit better, but it's been a positive week.

"I'm obviously very disappointed to lose, I would have liked to have got to the semis here but it was not to be.

"I don't say it very often but I think I was a little unlucky.

"I havent broken a string in a match for a long time but I broke two tonight and both when it was big points on his serve.

"It was definitely the best standard of match I've played on clay so far this year."