Andy Murray loses to Denis Kudla in three sets in Surbiton Trophy semi-final as his preparations for Wimbledon continue

Andy Murray has gone out of the Surbiton Trophy in the semi-finals, losing to American Denis Kudla 5-7 7-6(4) 6-3 on Saturday.

Murray, who was playing at the Challenger Tour event for the first time since he was a 17-year-old, could not find a way past the world No. 81 as the Scot ramps up his preparations for Wimbledon.

“It’s tough to read too much into how I played. I competed pretty well for the first couple of sets, third set not as well as I would have liked,” he said.

“It was brutal conditions for both of us today, there was not loads of amazing tennis. We were using different skills out there and trying to find ways to put the ball in difficult positions for the opponent. Denis did a better job of that today.

“I played some good matches this week. Today I’m not concerned about how I played. You can’t expect to play your best tennis when it’s like that.

“Overall it was good for me to get four matches, I would’ve liked to have won the tournament, but that wasn’t to be.”

Murray skipped the French Open to get fit for the grass season and he made a good start as he bidded to win his first grass tournament in six years.

The Scot raced into a 3-0 lead, and although Kudla did break back in the seventh game, Murray took the set on the first of his two set points.

The second set went to a tie-break and it was Kudla who edged it to ensure Murray would drop his first set of the tournament.

Momentum was with Kudla and Murray had to save five break points in the second game of the third set decider, but the American broke at 3-2 before going on to see out the match by serving it out to love.

Kudla will play Australian Jordan Thompson in Sunday’s final after he beat Finland’s Otto Virtanen 6-3 1-6 6-4.

Murray will now turn his attention to next week’s Stuttgart Open.

With some of the world’s best set to be competing in both Stuttgart and Queens as the grass court season gets underway, the Brit insists he is not setting lofty targets in the next couple of weeks.

Murray added: “I just want to keep improving week on week and match on match. That’s all you can do really.

“You can’t control the results, you can’t predict how the results are going to go but hopefully I can make improvements each round.”

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