Former world number one Andy Murray eased into the third round at Indian Wells with his first straight-sets victory this year.
The Scot beat Moldova’s Radu Albot, who was trying to claim his 100th tour-level win, 6-4 6-3 in one hour and 42 minutes.
Murray had just 18 unforced errors to 35 for Albot, and never faced a break point on his serve while firing six aces.
Having won in straight sets for the first time since October, Murray tweeted: “I’d forgotten what that felt like. Bosh.”
I’d forgotten what that felt like. Bosh💪 https://t.co/XSXs22iTbt
— Andy Murray (@andy_murray) March 12, 2023
The win set the Briton up to take on compatriot Jack Draper after the 21-year-old beat 24th seed Dan Evans 6-4 6-2.
Draper has lost just eight games through his first two matches of his Indian Wells debut.
There was more glory for Britain in the women’s draw with Emma Raducanu – the 2021 US Open champion – beating 20th seed Magda Linette 7-6 (3) 6-2.
Top-ranked Iga Swiatek routed Claire Liu in 65 minutes to win her opening match on Saturday.
Swiatek, the defending champion who took over the number one ranking nearly a year ago, won 6-0 6-1.
Carlos Alcaraz, the second-ranked men’s player, defeated qualifier Thanasi Kokkinakis 6-3 6-3, Taylor Fritz, the defending men’s champion, rallied past Ben Shelton 4-6 6-4 6-3, while Jannik Sinner defeated Richard Gasquet 6-3 7-6 (2).
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here