Early exit in Miami gives a surprise wake-up call to Murray

Murray, who received a first-round bye and was seeded third, was guilty of several errors in falling to the world No 101.

Fish, while clearly the underdog, had the crowd on his side and got plenty of help from Murray, who struggled with his forehand as he blew a 3-1 lead and 40-0 advantage in the first set to begin his demise.

Fish then broke Murray again early in the second set to take control of the match, which he won with a cross-court volley.

"I just wasn't very good today, and I'm gonna need to get a lot better, " said Murray.

"If you leave the ball short in the middle of the court, it's very easy for guys to attack and be aggressive.

"You don't get away with playing that way against guys that can serve well that are difficult to break and play very aggressive on the return."

There were no such problems for world No 1 and top seed Roger Federer, who needed a little over an hour to brush aside lucky loser Nicolas Lapentti 6-3 6-3.

Fifth seed Robin Soderling powered his way past Peter Luczak, hitting six aces in a 7-6 (7-5) 6-0 victory.

Ninth seed Fernando Gonzalez was also a straight-sets winner, beating Yen-Hsun Lu 6-4 6-4.

Seventh seed Marin Cilic breezed past Stephane Robert 6-3 6-2, while ninth seed Fernando Gonzalez and Tomas Berdych were also straight-sets winners.

Fernando Verdasco, seeded 10th, saw off Dudi Sela 6-1 6-2, but 20th seed Gilles Simon lost out to Horacio Zeballos, who claimed a 6-2 6-3 win.

There were also victories for Mikhail Youzhny, Florent Serra, Jurgen Melzer, Marcos Baghdatis, Feliciano Lopez, Stanislas Wawrinka, Juan Monaco, and Philipp Petzschner.

Last night, fourth seed Rafael Nadal was given a scare by Argentinian David Nalbandian before edging into the fourth round.

Nadal dropped the first set on a tie-break against the former Wimbledon finalist, who has missed much of the last year due to injury.

But Nadal turned up his level of play, as he needed to, and eventually won 6-7 (10/8) 6-2 6-2 against the wild-card entrant to set up a clash against either his fellow Spaniard David Ferrer or Croatian Ivo Karlovic.

Spain's Nicolas Almagro was another early winner today, beating Frenchman Jeremy Chardy 6-2 6-7 (11/9) 6-3, while Brazilian 27th seed Thomaz Bellucci defeated Belgian Olivier Rochus 6-3 6-4.

Venus Williams hit six aces as she breezed past Roberta Vinci 6-1 6-4 and into the fourth round in the women's draw.