ANDY Murray's dreams of winning the Australian Open were left crushed as he fell at the final hurdle once again to world number one Novak Djokovic.

The Serb raised his arms to the heavens and hurled his racquet and towel into the crowd after he beat Murray in four sets of brutal tennis, despite appearing at times to be hampered by injuries to a thumb and ankle.

After two brilliant, hard-fought sets, Djokovic surged ahead to overpower Murray three sets to one, hammering the Scot 6-0 in the final set to win his fifth Australian Open.

Victory takes Djokovic's tally of Grand Slams to eight, level with other greats Andre Agassi, Ken Rosewall, Ivan Lendl, Jimmy Connors and a certain Englishman by the name of Fred Perry.

Murray was in fine fettle on his way to the final but in Djokovic he faces a nemesis.

Just a week younger than Murray, he has now beaten him in each of the four Melbourne finals he has reached.

After battling back to level the match at one set all, the Andy Murray of old seemed to re-emerge when he began to loudly berate himself between points and games.

After a series of errors in the third set he hurled his racquet to the ground in anger, earning himself a chorus of boos from the crowd for his outburst.

And by the time the fourth and final set came round Murray looked beaten, eyes tired and head shaking. Djokovic won 12 of the last 13 games to clinch victory.

Murray's fiancee Kim Sears was once again in his box, poking fun at her apparent expletive-laden outburst in his semi-final match against Tomas Berdych by wearing a shirt with the slogan "Parental Advisory. Explicit Content".