Former Wimbledon Champion Andy Murray secured a third round place in the Australian Open after a clinical performance against Australian Marinko Matosevic.
The Brit, 27, won 6-1 6-3 6-2 in just one hour and 42 minutes and extended his lead against Australian players to an impressive 10-0.
As the temperature broke 30C marking the hottest day of the tournament yet, the sixth seed made just 12 unforced errors compared to Matosevic’s 49 on the Margaret Court Arena.
The three-time Australian Open finalist will face Portugal’s Joao Sousa in the third round securing his place in the last 32 for the seventh successive year.
Murray said in his press conference: “I definitely started quite quickly today.
“I was timing the ball well on the return and serving well from the beginning of the match.
“It helped a lot because obviously the crowd were behind him but I managed to take the crowd out of it a little bit by starting that quickly.
“When I noticed his timing was a bit off I felt like I played well quite smart and used a lot of variety.”
Murray closed the first set in just 21 minutes with one unforced error and went on to break the Australian’s serve at the beginning of the second and third sets.
In tone with the world no 81’s mistake-stricken performance he produced his 49th error to hand Murray the match.
It took just 1hr & 42mins for Murray to dismantle Matosevic 6-1 6-3 6-2 http://t.co/AP80NIMfjC #ausopen pic.twitter.com/Uoh9KfOR0L
— Australian Open (@AustralianOpen) January 21, 2015
The world no.6 certainly silenced Matosevic’s off-court criticisms over appointing Amelie Mauresmo as his coach last year with today’s almost perfect performance.
Murray had a tougher opening round in his Australian Open campaign but defeated India’s Yuki Bhambri in straight sets.
He recovered from 4-1 down in the third set to beat Bhambri 6-3 6-4 7-6 (7-3) in the Indian’s first Grand Slam match.
Image courtesy of BBC via YouTube, with thanks
