That Andy Murray’s defeat by Andy Roddick in the semi-finals of the Regions Morgan Keegan Championships on Saturday could legitimately be regarded as a shock should tell almost everything about the progress of Britain’s No 1.

On paper Roddick, as the world No 4, should have been the confident one, but when he sealed his 6-3, 7-6 victory with an ace, the look on his face was one of relief. The American may have gained revenge for his defeat by the Scot at the same stage in San Jose the previous weekend, but to listen to Murray afterwards was to get the impression that, with respect to Roddick, he feels he has bigger fish to fry, loftier goals to achieve.

“You’d have to ask him how he saw it, but I just viewed it as another match,” Murray said. “It was the semi-finals of a Tour event. Maybe it did mean a lot to him but it wasn’t like it was the biggest match I’ve ever played. I didn’t feel nervous walking on the court like I did at maybe some of the grand slams, against [Rafael] Nadal, against Roddick at Wimbledon, [David] Nalbandian the year before. I didn’t feel nervous, I was just looking forward to trying to play my game and unfortunately I didn’t play my game that well today.”

By contrast, Roddick was pumped up almost to the point of exploding. Such is the hold that Murray enjoyed over him in three of their four previous meetings that even when he had taken the first set, his frustration at any unforced error that came from his racket betrayed his state of mind.

Roddick admitted that the victory was as satisfying as any that he has had here, which, considering that this was his seventh year in Memphis and that he won the title in 2002, is a telling admission. He may have got the better of Murray this time, but he is unlikely to be confident of a repeat next time round.

“I definitely feel like I can play much better,” Murray said. “I played a lot better in Australia than I did the last couple of weeks, so I look forward to getting back outside, getting into more return games and being able to use my shots a little bit more.”

The 19-year-old, who is set to stay at No 13 in the world rankings when they are released today, stayed yesterday to watch his older brother, Jamie, and Eric Butorac, his American partner, who were due to take on Julian Knowle and Jörgen Melzer, the Austrian pair, in the doubles final last night.