Andy Murray romps into US Open third round

Sports Writer

Thursday 30 August 2012

Andy Murray went primetime and coast-to-coast for the US networks overnight here at Flushing Meadows and he certainly didn't disappoint.

The World No 4 and Olympic champion was determined to make his feature presentation against Croatia's Ivan Dodig an exhibition rather than a drama, and so it proved as the World No 118 was summarily dismissed by a 6-2, 6-1, 6-3 scoreline in less than two hours of running time.

Last year, the Scot had to wait until the Wednesday of the first week to make his debut in this competition; this year he has already become the first and only man to book his place in the third round draw, for the seventh consecutive year. He is assured of meeting a Spaniard there, either Feliciano Lopez or Pablo Andujar, in a match which now seems likely to take place on Saturday evening UK time. In cool, pleasant conditions which were night and day from the arid heat and humidity he encountered against Alex Bogomolov Jnr of Russia in the opening round on Monday, this was also a different Murray. He seemed determined to atone for the mishaps against the Russian and Dodig, a player who he had never previously met in competitive action, was his unfortunate victim. The Scot was making inroads into the Croat's fearsome serve from the very first game, and wasn't troubled on his own service games until deep in the final set when the 26-year-old from Zagreb's only desire was to prolong the match for a few more minutes. The Dodig serve was surrendered in the third and fifth game of the first set, three times more in the second, and one more in the third. By the end, unable to secure points reliably either at the net or from the baseline, the Croat had been permitted just six games in all. The most scary thing of all for the remainder of the tournament was that, having made 21 unforced errors, the Scot can still get better. Afterwards, Murray said it was a positive to be ahead of schedule, compared to previous years where he has frequently had to play matches back-to-back. The only negative was that he is likely to be on during the heat of the New York day again come Saturday. "I would have thought I would be playing Saturday day," the Scot said. "I mean sometimes at Wimbledon it happens where you play Friday, Monday. Here it has not happened to me that often where I've had the two-day break. I have to view it as an advantage after what I've been through at some of the US Opens before, like last year and when I made the final as well. I had a lot of matches in a short space of time. So I'd rather be in this position." Murray professed himself happy with his performance, and revealed that hard work in the video room was behind his tactical triumph. "It was better than the first round, that is for sure," he said. "It was pretty comfortable conditions out there. Not really any wind. It was fairly cool as well, so that helped. But I moved better than I did in the first match and served better than I did, so I was able to dictate more of the points because of that. I knew he liked to come forward a lot. I had watched a few clips of him playing the last couple of days. When you're expecting something it makes it much easier to play against." It wasn't all good news for the Murray family, though. The involvement of Andy's brother Jamie and his doubles partner Andre Sa of Brazil in the men's doubles competition came to an end when they went down 6-2, 6-2 to No 15 seeds Alexander Peya of Austria and Bruno Soares, also of Brazil, out on Court No 12. Fellow Scot Colin Fleming, however, maintained his 100% record at this tournament when he and his partner Sania Mirza of India recorded a 6-2, 7-6 (5) victory in the mixed doubles against Germany's Andrea Petkovic and Eric Butorac of the USA. "It was a very, very high standard," Mirza said. "Because we were playing together for the first time it took some time to adjust but he is a doubles specialist and a very good player so that really helped."

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Andy Murray romps into US Open third round

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