Andy Murray is beaten but not bowed after losing to Roger Federer in straight sets in the Dubai final Nobody knows the answer, but what we can say is that he is continuing to work on his weaknesses. His start to 2012 probably represents his best start to any season, even if he has still fallen short of that ultimate goal. "It's not that often where guys beat top players on back-to-back days," said Murray afterwards. It's not an easy thing to do. But overall it was a good week, perfect preparation for the stretch coming up in America. I worked on some things with Ivan Lendl before coming here [and have] just been trying to put them into the matches little by little. This week was a good start. Most obviously, Murray has cranked up his serve and it is hard to remember him collecting so many points without having to play a rally shot. Until Saturday, that is, when his first-serve percentage - which had been in the mid-60s all tournament - fell to just 48. It wasn't enough against a player as gifted as Federer, who used the chip-and-charge tactic effectively to seize the initiative. Chipping the service return back low and charging the net used to be one of Tim Henman's favourite options, but you don't see it much on the sluggish courts of the modern ATP tour. This tournament is an exception because it is played on a lightning-fast hard-court. Dubai favours a player whose serve bites like a rattlesnake, who comes forward at every opportunity, and who likes to keep points short. In other words, it favours Federer, the spotless Sheikh of sport. "It's nice winning somewhere where I spend so much time," said Federer afterwards. This tournament has a special place in my heart. It has also made a healthy contribution to his bank balance, with Saturday's prize money standing at $409,170 (£257,000) on top of a six-figure appearance fee. This success made it five titles from Federer's last seven tournaments entered, and when you consider that he is still only No 3 in the world, that underlines how difficult Murray's task is to climb up from his own regular station of No 4. Federer's dominance all week had been such that he had not suffered a single break of serve en route to this final. Around 20 minutes into the match, Murray had a chance of ending that hot streak, but he muffed a couple of regulation groundstrokes on break point. "I have a feeling if he breaks me here I'm probably not going to come back," Federer explained later. It was Federer who then took the initiative when he came up with a couple of odd little backhand service returns that dropped just over the net. Was this a fluke or just another manifestation of Federer's freak talent? It's hard to say for sure, but what was clear all week was that the fast court encouraged front-running. Once you got behind on this surface, the temptation was to push for winners, but it was so difficult to get your feet into position and line the ball up that over-aggression soon turned into unforced errors. Murray did finally score that elusive break in the middle of the second set, in what was Federer's 67th service game of the tournament. He had to produce a couple of blinding points to do it, the first won with a clever little drop volley and the second with a series of pinpoint lobs. But it availed him little, as that mini-triumph only put him back on level terms at 4-4, and Federer soon broke again. It was a huge inside-out forehand that finished the job in 96 minutes. Murray was out, but he wasn't down, because he remembers how bleak things had been in the early springtime of his last two seasons. As he said afterwards: "I'm just happy with the week, because at this stage last year I was in a very different position, a different frame of mind. "It's a very important period for me, this one coming up," he added, "because I struggled there [in Indian Wells and Miami] the last couple of years. I'm going to get over there early, get some good practice in. And off he went, straight to the airport for a night flight to Los Angeles.