Former Wimbledon winner Pat Cash has claimed that "the situation got too much" for Andy Murray during his Australian Open final with Novak Djokovic today.
Murray appeared to be in control of the match when, at a set apiece, he broke the world number one to take a 2-0 lead in the third.
However, he went on to win just one of the next 13 games, eventually falling to a 7-6[5] 6-7[4] 6-3 6-0 defeat at the Rod Laver Arena.
An apparent injury to Djokovic seemed to affect Murray's concentration, and Cash accused the Brit of giving up on the fight all too easily.
"Things just started snowballing for Murray once he lost that concentration when everything was going his way He hasn't put up a great fight, he hasn't. He absolutely collapsed," he told BBC Sport. "Sorry but you don't put a rose tint on this. He melted down, he's been disappointing and the bottom line is, the situation got too much.
"He has to look at it and say 'I can't do this again. What has gone wrong, what did I do wrong?' It's the same stuff that's happened his whole career. He needs to find the right balance, the right balance between attack and defence. He'll be sat there thinking 'what happened, what did I do, I'm a disgrace, I've let everyone down', but he'll learn from it."
The defeat means that Murray has still not beaten a world number one since his triumph over Djokovic in the 2013 Wimbledon final, and Cash believes that the Scot needs to have a "good hard look" at himself and ask why he is failing to beat the best.
"If he wants to beat these guys then he has to start learning from this. He's a seriously good player but if he wants to be a great player then he has to fix this element," the Australian added.
"He has to have a good hard look in the mirror and he's needed to have a good hard look in the mirror for a long time. [Former coach] Ivan Lendl said 'Listen son, pull your head together'.
"He's got to focus and look at why he had the meltdown. If he works on that part of his game then I can see him holding the Wimbledon trophy but he's got to look in the mirror. This is not the worst thing for him to be, I'd almost say embarrassed, and hopefully he'll learn from it."
Murray has now lost in the Australian Open final four times in his career, three of which have come at the hands of Djokovic.
Barney Corkhill
