MELBOURNE, Jan 14, 2008 - Britain's great tennis hope Andy Murray blamed poor decision-making and not his physical preparation for his ignominious exit from the Australian Open on Monday.

　　Murray was flummoxed by the mercurial Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who had one of his "on" days in bundling the ninth seed out of the tournament in a pulsating first round match.

　　He fell to the athletic Tsonga, 7-5, 6-4, 0-6, 7-6 (7/5) in three hours 14 minutes of cut and thrust tennis on centre court.

　　Arriving full of optimism after a first-up win in the Qatar Open, the 20-year-old Scot had his chances against the Frenchman, who loomed as a dangerous opponent after beating Lleyton Hewitt in Adelaide earlier this month.

　　But Murray was disconsolate at some of his "silly shots" and dismissed suggestions he was not well enough prepared for the year's first Grand Slam tournament.

　　It was the third time in nine Grand Slams that Murray has been dumped out in the first round.

　　"I don't think it's anything to do with not getting to Australia early enough," Murray snapped at a British reporter. "I mean, six, seven days of preparation. I trained in the hot conditions. That wasn't really a problem.

　　"I played three practice matches and was playing decent, and then over here when I was hitting balls I felt good.

　　"It was nothing to do with the physical thing why I lost the match. It was just a few points here or there, I think a couple of bad decisions, a couple of net cords here and there, that was the end of it."

　　Murray sacked his highly-paid American coach Brad Gilbert last November and installed a coaching and training collective, headed by French-Canadian coach Louis Cayer, with a view to making an impact here.

　　"I did all the right preparation, worked very hard on my game and I've improved a lot of my shots," he said.

　　"I'm obviously disappointed that I didn't win the match. I would have wanted to win more than anything. I gave it my best effort out there.

　　"But it's not the worst I've felt after a defeat."

　　Murray had comfortably beaten Tsonga in their only previous meeting at Metz last year, but he found the extravagant Frenchman in his best form running around the court, retrieving and smacking outright winners.

　　Tsonga jumped out to a two-set lead to Murray under pressure, but the Scot clawed back the third set without dropping a game and the tide looked to be turning.

　　But Tsonga, who described his victory as "unbelievable", saved his energy for another concerted effort in the fourth set which went to a tiebreaker.

　　Both players shared mini-breaks in the tiebreaker but a crucial Murray double-fault gave his opponent the edge at 5-4, and a Tsonga ace set up match point.

　　Murray's Australian campaign was over when his forehand was wide.

　　Tsonga's flashiness was evident in the match statistics, with 57 winners to Murray's 38, but making 61 unforced errors to 27 as he went constantly for his shots along with six double faults.