HE SAVED seven match points in seven minutes but Andy Murray’s first defeat in eight matches in Memphis last night doused him with a shower of reality after the storm of the past few days.

Murray lost 6-1, 6-4 to Robin Soderling of Sweden in the quarter-finals of the Regions Morgan Keegan Championships — revenge for defeat at the same stage the previous week when Murray went on to win his maiden ATP title in San Jose — and now has a bit of time to breathe.

“I was a little bit tired mentally,” Murray said. “It’s really difficult to keep a run going, especially after the week I had last week. I’m a little bit disappointed to lose but happy with the last couple of weeks.”

For the new British No 1 to have stayed competitive as long as he did in Tennessee after the tumult of his exploits last week made this the most demanding of weeks.

Now Murray can head to Las Vegas for the Tennis Channel Open next week with a bit of time on his hands. There was a shock on Thursday night when the Scot’s name appeared to have been erased from the list of competitors, whereas it should have been Gilles Muller of Luxembourg who had been withdrawn.

Such is the following that Murray is building in America, there was an immediate succession of phone calls from the tournament director to make certain that he was competing.

Arvind Parmar’s hopes of reaching his first ATP Tour semi-final were extinguished when he lost 6-3, 6-3 to Christophe Rochus, of Belgium, in the ABN/AMRO tournament in Rotterdam.