Murray on cruise control in Dubai to beat Garcia-Lopez in double quick time

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 here as Murray eased to a 6-2 6-0 to set up a clash with German 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 GarciaLopez, 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 confident 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 in the quarter-finals against Kohlschreiber, who has won only one of their five previous matches but taken sets in all of them.

Should Murray win that, a first meeting with Australian Open champion Roger Federer since 2015 is on the cards.

Meanwhile, Dan Evans put up a decent fight before falling in his secondround match against Gael Monfils.

The British No.2, who is at a careerhigh ranking of 43, hit back impressively after losing the first set but was unable to maintain the momentum as fourth seed Monfils triumphed 6-4 3-6 6-1.