Murray in mint condition in Madrid

Mike Perez,Pa Sport
Thursday 13 May 2010 20:25 BST
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Andy Murray cruised into the quarter-finals of the Madrid Open tonight with a one-sided victory over Romanian Victor Hanescu.

Murray started his tournament with a convincing second-round win over Juan Ignacio Chela yesterday and the world number four was even more impressive today as he downed his giant opponent 6-2 6-1 in one hour and nine minutes.

Murray will now meet the winner of tonight's match between eighth seed Marin Cilic and ninth seed David Ferrer.

The triumph for Murray is the first time since Indian Wells in March that the Scot has won back-to-back matches having gone through a barren spell.

There was little doubt who would end up victorious once Murray took total control of the match against his error-prone opponent midway through the first set at La Caja Magica.

The 22-year-old enjoyed a flying start to yesterday's match against Chela as he dropped just one point in his first three games to take a 3-0 lead with two breaks, and he was off the mark quickly again today.

Having held his opening game, Murray established a 0-30 lead on Hanescu's serve.

However, the 6ft 6in Romanian hit back to win that game and then fashioned two break points on the next Murray serve to hint at a potentially tough evening for the third seed.

Murray, though, managed to save both of those though before establishing a 2-1 lead.

After that it was virtually all one-way traffic with Murray winning four of the next five games to take the first set.

Hanescu fought hard to hold his serve in the fourth game, but then Murray held to love before breaking his opponent in the following game.

Murray then comfortably claimed the seventh game before breaking Hanescu for a second time, winning the set when the Romanian fluffed a backhand shot down the line.

That was Hanescu's 17th unforced error in the first set, compared to just four from Murray.

Murray's dominance continued through into the second set as he held serve and then immediately broke his struggling opponent to go 2-0 up.

The next three games went with serve to leave Murray 4-1 ahead, and he ensured there would be no way back for Hanescu as he broke the 28-year-old in the sixth game after creating three break points.

Murray then held his serve to complete the win, Hanescu ending the match with yet another unforced error - his 31st of the match, which was 23 more than the British number one made.

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