Andy Murray admitted he was not at the top of his game during the Madrid Masters final against unseeded Frenchman Gilles Simon - but believes he was full value for his win.

Murray clinched his fourth singles title of the year by recording a 6-4 7-6 (8/6) victory over Simon, adding the Madrid crown to his successes in Cincinnati, Marseille and Doha.

The world number four was not as impressive as during his semi-final victory over Swiss superstar Roger Federer on Saturday, but the Scot was still too good for his opponent.

"I didn't particularly feel like I was on my game in terms of groundstrokes," Murray said.

"I served great, and when it mattered I came forward, came to the net a few times, took the ball on a little bit.

"Maybe I put a little bit too much pressure on myself because I was expected to win and I knew he was going to be tired but I saved my best tennis until right at the end and deserved to come through."

Murray and Simon could barely have had more contrasting routes to the final.

Whereas Murray did not drop his first set during the tournament until yesterday's semi-final win over Federer, surprise package Simon had to go the full three-set distance in all five of his matches.

The 23-year-old also had to rally from a set down in four of those matches, and needed to save four match points during his opening-round win over Igor Andreev and two more in his third-round clash with Robby Ginepri.

On top of that, Simon knocked out three seeds along the way, including yesterday's stunning semi-final win over home favourite Rafael Nadal, beating the world number one 3-6 7-5 7-6 (8/6) in a match that saw the Frenchman save 17 break points.

Murray said: "Both of us made a lot of mistakes but both of us were a little bit tired from yesterday, him probably more than me.

"But I played a long-ish match against Federer, and emotionally it's difficult to win against someone like him.

"So to come out the next day and be expected to win a match reasonably comfortably is tough."

Simon, who did not earn a single break point against Murray during the match, admitted his gruelling semi-final encounter with Nadal had taken it out of him.

"It was one of the factors. Of course I was really tired today, I didn't move how I usually do and Andy knew it, he just wanted to kid me, just wanted to make me run all the time, right, left, right, left..." Simon said.

"That's why I lost today because I just couldn't focus on every point. It was really hard, I would give everything on one point and then... it was just too much for me."

Murray travels to Russia now to defend his title at the St Petersburg Open before the season concludes with the Paris Masters and the Masters Cup - for which he has already qualified.

David Nalbandian triumphed in both Madrid and Paris last season, but Murray played down his chances of repeating that feat.

"I've played great the last few months, I'm just going to try to keep it going," he added. "I've never played particularly well in Paris so I'll try and play a bit better this year."