New Delhi, Apr 11 (IANS): Former World no 1 Andy Murray has termed his Monte Carlo Masters first round loss to Alex De Minaur as 'awful' and 'demoralising' and said that it was one of the worst performances of his career.

A three-time Grand Slam champion, Murray, who was playing on the Monaco clay for the first time since 2017, suffered 6-1 6-3 at the hands of the Australian on Monday.

"It was awful. Nothing was good about it. I don't know exactly why that was. Obviously I didn't play a great match in Miami. And this was worse than that," Murray was quoted as saying by The Herald.

"I didn't do anything well, didn't serve well, return well, forehands, backhands, shot selection. It was probably one of the worst I've played in my career. I had a match like that last year in Doha against (Roberto) Bautista (Agut) that was pretty bad and maybe one or two others in my career, but in terms of how I felt on the court, it was right up there, just across the board," he said.

The Scottish newspaper reported that Murray is considering whether to play the rest of the clay-court season.

The Brit had earlier said he intended to play in Roland Garros "one more time before he stops playing".

"I was feeling optimistic coming into the clay. I'd been feeling good with my body the last 10 days or so considering I've not played much on it. I was feeling good and I'd actually been moving pretty well in practice, so I was optimistic. But it was pretty demoralising and I've not felt like that many times in my career on the court. It was really tough," Murray said.

The two-time Wimbledon champion, who has an 8-5 record this season, has some epic wins to his name including memorable five-set victories over Matteo Berrettini and Thanasi Kokkinakis at the Australian Open and a run of four straight matches in Doha that required a deciding set.