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 France's 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." Should he get to the fourth round it will be an even better performance as next up for the British No 1 is the clay-court king Rafael Nadal.

Murray looked in control at all times against Simon, who won the only previous meeting between the pair in Rome last year and was favourite to progress. But, a day before his 21st birthday, Murray was in a hurry.

Simon showed the potential to trouble Murray with his power but too many unforced errors let the Brit 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 chance to clinch victory at the first opportunity when he slipped to 0-40 but five successive points wrapped it up as the match ended with a Simon mistake.

Results, Digest, page 51

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