LONDON • Andy Murray has revealed that he was suffering from a shoulder injury when he lost the Cincinnati Masters final to Marin Cilic 6-4, 7-5 on Sunday - which ended his 22-match winning run.

But the British tennis player, a three-time Grand Slam winner, believes that the defeat cannot take the gloss off the fact that he is playing the best tennis of his career at the age of 29.

Since losing the French Open final to Novak Djokovic, the world No. 2 has won the Queen's tournament, a second Wimbledon title and a second Olympic gold.

After defeating Argentina's Juan Martin del Potro in a gruelling four-set, four-hour final in Rio de Janeiro, he flew directly to Cincinnati, Ohio to contest the Western & Southern Open.

Despite battling the shoulder problem and jet lag, the two-time champion beat Juan Monaco, Kevin Anderson, Bernard Tomic and Milos Raonic without dropping a set to reach the final, reported Eurosport.

"I'm very proud of the week," said Murray. "Obviously (the final) didn't go how I would've wanted. But I certainly didn't expect to get to the final when I arrived here.

"After the first match, I was having problems with my shoulder. I did speak about it with my team, but my physio was pretty confident that it was just fatigue, and that I didn't have any sort of structural damage in my shoulder.

"When it was said that I wasn't going to make it worse by playing, I thought: 'Let's go for it this week. Let's try and get through as many matches as we can."

Murray is not deflated that he lost to Cilic. The Scot believes he is in top form ahead of the US Open, which starts next week.

"It's obviously disappointing when you get to the final and not win, but it was a very, very positive week considering everything," he said. "Mentally I'm in a good place just now."

He has a week off before he begins his campaign at the fourth Grand Slam of the year, where top-ranked Djokovic will be the favourite.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE