There was no surprise 21st birthday present for Andy Murray yesterday during his 6-3, 6-2 defeat at Rafael Nadal's gifted hands in the third round of the Hamburg Masters.

There was no surprise 21st birthday present for Andy Murray yesterday, at least not from Rafael Nadal. There were many returns from the other side of the net during Murray's 6-3, 6-2 defeat at Nadal's gifted hands in the third round of the Hamburg Masters but none of them were of the happy variety.

The stratospheric level of excellence required to beat Nadal on clay was lacking from Murray, as it was always likely to be given the Scot's relative inexperience on the surface and Nadal's position as the finest clay court player of the last twenty years.

Yesterday's defeat will undoubtedly provide more ammunition for those who consistently find fault with Murray - largely because they search for it so relentlessly - but he did not do too much wrong.

Granted, Murray's forehand, which is amongst his most important weapons when he hits it well, misfired on too many occasions and overall much of his good work in rallies was undone by a badly executed final shot, but he probably played well enough to have beaten the majority of other players.

As Roger Federer has repeatedly found to his cost, beating Nadal when he is dancing around with the red dirt beneath his feet remains probably the most difficult task in modern men's tennis.

One of Nadal's many strengths on clay - apart from the silky athleticism, the coruscating forehand and the general brilliance, of course - is his knack of making opponents try a little too hard. It was that, more than anything, which was Murray's undoing. The Scot was a break up at the start of the second set and frequently had Nadal in difficult situations before the Spaniard pressured him into mistakes.

Murray could not have asked for a better opportunity to measure his progress on clay, the surface on which he is least accomplished, than taking on Nadal. Victory would have been a miraculous bonus to go with the table football game, the dart board, the pool table and the oil painting of Muhammad Ali he got from various family members and friends but, realistically, the best Murray could hope for was to walk off court after playing Nadal knowing more about clay-court tennis than he did when he woke up yesterday morning to the sound of his five-year-old nieces singing Happy Birthday down the phone to him.

All that he did right and wrong against Nadal - as well as what Nadal did to him - will help Murray go into the French Open, which starts a week on Sunday, better equipped than he would otherwise be to win his first match there.

Murray has often said that his biggest challenge on clay is getting the right balance between aggression and patience and he has done a better job of that this week in Hamburg than he did in his previous 2008 clay-court tournaments in Monte Carlo, Barcelona and Rome.

Barcelona aside, where he went out in the first round to Mario Ancic, Murray has won matches and beaten accomplished clay courters in recent weeks and picked up points at all three of the clay Masters Series events. Given his previously spotty record on the stuff, that is exactly the sort of French Open preparation that he would have wanted though his solid, unspectacular results are probably not enough for those who have inaccurately accused him of going through a slump. Murray is now close to a return to the top 10 and though he is still some way off Nadal in terms of clay-court prowess, there is hardly any disgrace in that.

The Lawn Tennis Association announced yesterday that Great Britain will play Austria on grass at Wimbledon when the two teams meet in a World Group play-off in September. Under Davis Cup rules, the home team has choice of surface and Great Britain's captain John Lloyd has opted for grass over an indoor venue, despite the fact that September marks the start of the autumn European indoor season for Murray, the team's lynchpin. Should Great Britain lose to Austria - an almost certain outcome if Murray does not play - then the team will be relegated from the top division of the competition.