Murray eases to victory

ANDY Murray cruised through to the third round of the Dubai Duty Free Championships with a swift victory over Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.

The Spaniard had won their last meeting in Indian Wells five years ago but there was no sniff of an upset as Murray eased to a 6-2 6-0 victory to set up a clash with Philipp Kohlschreiber.

Murray played himself into form during his opening win over Malek Jaziri, his first singles match for five weeks.

And he was on top of his game from the off against 97th-ranked Garcia-Lopez, striking the ball with great authority and pushing his opponent well behind the baseline.

Garcia-Lopez won fewer than half the points on his own serve and his only break point came in the opening game, which Murray saved with a backhand winner.

The world No 1 finished the match, which lasted just an hour and 12 minutes, with a run of eight successive games.

He is likely to find things tougher i n the quarterfinals against Kohlschreiber, who has won only one of their five previous matches but taken sets in all of them.

Eighteen-time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer i s out after a second-round l oss t o Evgeny Donskoy.

Federer won January’s Australian Open but was beaten 3-6 7-6 (9/7) 7-6 (7/5) by world No 116 Donskoy in two hours and two minutes.

Heather Watson bowed out of the Abierto M e x i c a n o Te l c e l in Acapulco after a 7-6 (7/4) 6-7 (5/7) 7-5 defeat to Kristina Mladenovic.

Andy Murray