Murray eases past Copil

ANDY MURRAY secured his place in the third round of the Madrid Open following a 6-4 6-3 win over Marius Copil.

The world No 1 (below), who is continuing his return from an elbow injury after reaching the semi-finals in Barcelona, eventually forced a late break in a tense opening set before his superior power came through against the 26-year-old Romanian.

Copil had initially put up some strong resistance, having saved two break point chances on his opening service game of what developed into a tight first set.

With both players holding, Murray went ahead at 5-4, which put more pressure on the Romanian as he served to stay in the set.

The world No 1 didn’t let his chance slip, forcing Copil into a long return from the corner before a fine passing shot from Murray brought up a set point. Copil put a return into the net as the Scot claimed the first set in 47 minutes.

Despite the momentum now being with Murray, Copil continued to find his range, holding a testing fourth game having squandered a 40-love lead to level at 2-2 on serve. Murray slowly upped the tempo, forcing another deuce on Copil’s next service game that saw a double fault after a break chance, which this time the Scot claimed when the Romanian’s backhand was long. Murray, set to also play in Rome ahead of the French Open, soon moved 5-2 up with a straightforward hold which left Copil serving to save the match.

However, Murray was forced to wait until the next game after another brave response from the world number 104. Murray made no mistake on his serve forcing Copil into errors to complete his straightsets win.