Refreshed Murray hits his stride

Andy Murray warned that he might take time to find his rhythm again, having played just two Davis Cup rubbers in the five weeks since his appearance in the US Open final five weeks ago. As it turned out the 21-year-old Scot needed a matter of seconds to rediscover his stride here at the Madrid Masters yesterday. Murray won the first seven games of his second-round match against Simone Bolelli before the Italian retired with a shoulder injury when trailing 0-6, 1-2 and 0-40.

Bolelli, 23, sought treatment during what proved to be the final changeover, but until his penultimate service game the only wounds the world No 43 seemed to be suffering were those inflicted on his morale. Although Bolelli was hitting the ball well enough, he had little answer to Murray's classic combination of subtlety and power.

The Italian appeared mesmerised by Murray's tantalising changes of pace, exquisite drop shots, pulverising backhand drives and clever variations of serve, which produced seven aces. He probably knew it was not going to be his day after an extraordinary point at the end of the second game as Murray returned a series of smashes to make an immediate break of serve.

Bolelli, strangely enough, was back on court playing doubles two hours later. Murray said he thought the Italian had been hitting big serves without any difficulties until the second game of the second set. "I don't know if he did it on one point in particular, but I don't think he had come to the court with a problem," Murray said.

Aware that his opponent had already experienced three matches in the exceptionally fast conditions here – Bolelli played in qualifying and beat Nicolas Almagro, the world No 17, in the first round – Murray was delighted to have hit the ground running.

"I've been playing really, really well in practice over the last few weeks, better than I was playing throughout the summer," he said. "I was hitting the ball much better. But it's great to do it in your first match, when there are a few nerves and where the conditions are tough. The ball flies around a bit more here because of the altitude, which also affects your breathing. There were a lot of things to take into account today, so I was really happy with the way I served and moved."

He added: "Mentally I'm probably a bit fresher than I was around the time of the US Open. It was a long summer, although physically I felt OK. Shot selection and focus on every point can be better when you're fresh."

The result extends a rich vein of form for the world No 4. On the main tour since early June Murray has reached the quarter-finals at Wimbledon and the semi-finals at the Toronto Masters, won the Cincinnati Masters and played in the US Open final.

His next opponent looks sure to provide a tougher test. Marin Cilic, a 20-year-old Croat, has climbed 35 places to No 24 in the world rankings since the start of the year and yesterday overwhelmed Spain's Fernando Verdasco, the world No 13, 6-2, 6-3.

The first significant loser was James Blake, who will struggle to make the field for the end-of-season Tennis Masters Cup after being beaten in three sets by Gilles Simon, who is making a late dash to join the plane for Shanghai.

Murray's match, which followed three other quick wins on the main show court, brought an early end to the day session shortly after 4.30pm. It probably meant that many of the 1,000 or so ticket-holders who had been enjoying lunch in the tournament's sumptuous hospitality area saw little tennis, if any at all.

Crowds are always huge at one of the most successful tournaments on the men's calendar. The 9,600-capacity main arena at the Casa de Campo is regularly sold out. There were big crowds even to watch qualifying, while all the tickets for the final weekend were sold out five months ago. Next year the tournament will be played in May – Shanghai takes over the October slot – on clay at a new 20,000-capacity venue called "The Magic Box" on the western outskirts of the city. It will be a joint event for men and women, with prize-money of nearly £5.1m.