Murray tells Fognini to 'shut up' en route to bad-tempered defeat in Shanghai

Shanghai, October 8: Andy Murray was involved in an angry exchange with Fabio Fognini at the Shanghai Masters on Tuesday, telling his opponent to "shut up" on his way to a second-round defeat.

Former world number one Murray, continuing his return from hip resurfacing surgery, put up a valiant fight before going down 7-6 (7-4), 2-6, 7-6 (7-2) in a clash that lasted over three hours.

However, the match was more notable for an angry exchange during the changeover after Murray had broken for a 6-5 lead in the decider.

The Scot complained that Fognini, who had earlier been handed a code violation for hitting a ball into the stand and throwing his racket at a court-side chair, had called out during a rally and Murray expressed his anger to umpire Fergus Murphy.

Murray repeatedly attempted to engineer conversation with Murphy, claiming "he [Fognini] does it to everyone". Fognini attempted to intervene but was told to "shut up" up by his opponent.

If anything, the exchange, appeared to disrupt Murray more as when he came out to serve for the match he was promptly broken before Fognini ran through the tie-break to advance.