Murray blown away by Nadal

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The match was played in extremely windy conditions, with gusts of 40mph, and the British number one struggled with all parts of his game. He was broken twice in each set as world number one Nadal eased to his second title of the year following January's Australian Open success.

The 21-year-old said: "I'd like to congratulate Rafa. He definitely deserved to win. He played great in difficult conditions."

He added: "I haven't played in conditions as windy as that for quite a long time. Rafa dealt with it very well. He hit the ball cleaner and just seemed to get himself in better positions than I did.

"You don't necessarily want to be doing a whole lot of defending and running. You want to be in the best position possible to hit each ball, and I wasn't. That's why he managed to dictate most of the points.

"But I've had a great start to the year and hopefully I can keep it going."

Indeed, for Murray there were plenty of consolations; a third ATP Tour final of the season after victories in Doha and Rotterdam and plenty of ranking points to up the pressure on world number three Novak Djokovic.

Looking ahead to next week's Masters Series event in Miami, Murray added: "I got a lot of matches that I wasn't necessarily expecting, so going into Miami I'm better prepared than I thought.

"Obviously, this was not my best day but I'll definitely get over it because I'm guessing I'm not going to play in those conditions each week."

Nadal's victory ensured Murray's winning run against him ended at two, and the Spaniard was delighted to rack up a sixth career success over the Scot, claiming: "Andy was the only top player who I didn't beat this year so it was important."