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 This month the world number three has lost the Australian Open
final against Novak Djokovic and then failed to live up to his top
seed billing in Rotterdam as he fell by the wayside in the
quarter-finals.
Murray arrived in Dubai temporarily shorn of his coach Amelie
Mauresmo before struggling to find practice partners. The lack of
preparation may have led to his downfall at the Aviation Club on
Thursday.
"I made way too many mistakes from the beginning of the match right
through to the end; early in rallies, (I was) rushing points," the
Briton told reporters.
"(It was) quite similar to the match I played against (Gilles) Simon
in Rotterdam which is disappointing."
Top seed Djokovic steamed into the last four with a 6-1 6-1 win over
Marsel Ilhan of Turkey and Roger Federer eased through when Richard
Gasquet retired after losing the first set 6-1 but Murray was
completely outplayed.
The Scot lost three successive service games to concede the first
set 6-1.
Coric, who made the main draw as a lucky loser, broke for a decisive
4-2 lead in the second set before serving out for the match.
NO WEAK SPOTS
"He doesn't have any weak spots that you can actually say I need to
play on his backhand or on his forehand," said Coric.
"I was just trying to stay in the rally as long as I can. I was
running very good."
Murray failed to earn a single break point against Coric, the Croat
winning 88 and 84 percent of points on his first and second serves
respectively, while the Zagreb native also broke four times.
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The Scot won only five points on Coric's serve in the entire match.
The Croat, who last year became the youngest player to crack the top
100 since Rafa Nadal burst through in 2003, had failed to get past
the second round in any of his five previous tournaments this year.
But the 84th-ranked player will be eager to build on his victory
over Murray when he faces 17-times grand slam winner Federer in
Friday's semi-finals.
Second seed Federer is chasing an unprecedented seventh Dubai title
and moved into the last four when Frenchman Gasquet had to pull out
with lower back pain having lost the first set.
On the other side of the draw, Djokovic swept aside world number 104
Ilhan in 49 minutes for the loss of two games.
Djokovic next faces Czech Tomas Berdych who beat Ukraine's Sergiy
Stakhovsky 6-3 4-6 6-2.
(Writing by Toby Davis, editing by Tony Jimenez)
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