Andy Murray's winning run in China came to an end as he fell to world No 1 Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals of the China Open, but the Scot is confident he will soon return to his best form.
Murray won in Shenzhen last week as he seeks to force his way into the top eight in the rankings to make the ATP World Tour Finals, and his run to the last four in Beijing, where he beat US Open champion Marin Cilic in straight sets in the quarter-finals, has done that bid no harm, moving him up to ninth in the race.
"I feel I'm playing well," said Murray, who went down 6-3, 6-4, in an hour and 36 minutes to Djokovic. "My body's responded pretty good to playing an eighth match in 10 days, so that's positive. I got a lot of matches, some momentum. Obviously, I would have liked to have done a little bit better here. But I lost to the No 1 player in the world. There's no disgrace in that."
Murray will continue his bid for one of the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals spots at the 02 arena in London this week when he competes for 1000 points at the Shanghai Rolex Masters.
Seeded 11th, Murray opens his campaign against a qualifier, with a possible third-round clash with London hopeful David Ferrer. He could face Djokovic again in the quarter-finals.
"You always want to try to do a little bit better," the Scot said. "Hopefully I can make some improvements next week. I've always enjoyed playing in Shanghai.
"I played some of my best tennis there. I hope I can do the same again. If I play well, I'll give myself a chance at getting to the O2.
"Novak obviously plays extremely well in these conditions on that court [in Beijing]. It's slow, pretty heavy conditions. You feel like you can really go for your shots. You aren't going to make errors.
"In these conditions he obviously moves exceptionally well. It's tough to get many free points or hit winners. Over the course of the match, that builds up a bit.
"I was doing a decent job of it myself, but I just made a few too many errors today. I played some good stuff. But the period in the middle of the first set, and the beginning of the second set, I could have done better."
The first set was going with serve until an epic nine-minute eighth game. Murray saw off two break points and got a game point, but ballooned a forehand long. Djokovic earned himself another break point and this time he took it as Murray put the ball into the net to hand the Serb a 5-3 lead.
The world No 1 then closed out the set to leave Murray, who has never beaten him when losing the first set, a mountain to climb. His task grew at the start of the second as he let Djokovic break him to love in the first game and then take a 2-0 lead.
Murray held serve in the third game and had two break points in the fourth, but Djokovic held his nerve for 3-1.
Murray fought back and broke his opponent at the third time of asking to level things. Both men then held serve, but Djokovic broke again to make it 5-4 - prompting a racket-smashing episode from Murray - and served out the final game to love to reach his fifth final in Beijing.
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