Murray hurries to win over error-prone Simon

Andy Murray matched his best clay-court performance by reaching the third round of the Hamburg Masters with a 6-3, 6-3 win over Gilles Simon yesterday. "It was a very good victory," said Murray. "He's beaten a lot of top guys on clay and is a very tough clay-court player. I was happy to finish it off so professionally."

The British No 1 put in a dominant showing and looked in control throughout. Simon won the only previous meeting between the pair in Rome last year in three sets and would have been expected to provide Murray with a stern test. But, a day before his 21st birthday, the world No 14 was in a hurry.

The Frenchman was showing the potential to trouble Murray with his power but too many times unforced errors let the 15th seed off the hook. After taking the first set 6-3, and going to 5-3 in the second, it looked like Murray would waste the opportunity to clinch victory at the earliest opportunity when he slipped to 0-40 but five successive points wrapped it up as the match ended with a Simon error.