Murray storms into Round 3 at Barcelona

Andy Murray continued to apply polish to his claycourt tennis as the second seed reached the third round of the Barcelona Open with a comfortable defeat of Sergiy Stakhovsky 6-3, 6-2 yesterday. Murray, playing the tournament for only the third time, secured his second career win at the Real Club de Tenis in 78 minutes.

The World No 4 now stands 4-0 over Stakhovsky, a Ukrainian journeyman ranked 68th. Murray is working to reach the form which took him to a Roland Garros semi-final a year ago, with hopes of doing even better. He lost a Monte Carlo quarter-final last week to Tomas Berdych, who had to withdraw from this week’s competition in Spain.u00a0

Andy Murray

The Scot ended with 16 winners and a dozen unforced errors, breaking on three of his five chances. He next plays either Santiago Giraldo of Colombia of Dutchman Robin Haase, a Monte Carlo quarter-finalist. “I played well and found my comfort zone form the first game,” said the winner, who broke four times. “Maybe he was a little tired. “This is a special tournament for me. I’m back in Barcelona and I want to do my best.”u00a0

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