Andy Murray, the British No.1, admitted his serve let him down after he was knocked out of the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami by Mario Ancic.
Murray, seeded 13th, fought back from a terrible start to take the second-round match to a deciding tie-break in a tense final set but the Scot squandered an opportunity to win the match and served a double fault to lose 6-2, 2-6, 7-6.
"That was just a bad serve," Murray told www.atptennis.com "It was the first time on tour that I've lost a match when I've had match points so that's pretty disappointing but I didn't serve well the whole match, so I probably wasn't feeling as confident as I normally would at that stage."
Murray, who defeated Ancic in the final of the Marseille Open earlier this year, was broken in his first service game and was outgunned for most of the rest of the first set.
The Croat held seven break points in total and managed to convert one more to take a healthy early advantage. Yet Murray's response was good as he served much better in the second set and took two crucial breaks to level the contest.
The final set was more gruelling with both players dropping serve twice. In the tie-break, Ancic - serving at 4-6 - saved one match point before Murray hit a double fault on his second match point en route to defeat.
And it was Ancic, currently ranked No.63 in the world, who came out on top after almost two-and-a-half hours on court, winning the tie-break 9-7.
Roger Federer, the top seed, moved a step closer to retaining the title with a straight-sets win over Frenchman Gael Monfils.
Federer beat Monfils 6-3, 6-4 in just more than an hour in his first match since a surprise loss to Mardy Fish in the Indian Wells semi-finals last week. The world No.1 now faces Sweden's Robin Soderling in the third round.
In the women's event, Ana Ivanovic maintained her excellent recent form with a second- round straight-sets win over unseeded Emilie Loit.
The second-seeded Serb, fresh from her victory over Svetlana Kuznetsova in the Pacific Life Open final last weekend, dispatched the Frenchwoman with a dominant 6-1, 6-2 victory to set up a third-round clash with Lindsay Davenport, the 32nd seed.
Ivanovic needed only 45 minutes as she won 80% (12 of 15) of her first serves and did not face a break point against Loit. Davenport was equally dominant as she claimed her place in the third round with a 6-2, 6-1 win over another French player, Camille Pin.
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