• Shanghai Masters

Murray overwhelms Wawrinka in Shanghai

Andy Murray's court craft was once again out of the top drawer © Getty Images

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Andy Murray's sizzling run of form in Asia shows no signs of slowing as he outpointed Stanislas Wawrinka 6-4 3-6 6-3 to move into the quarter finals of the Shanghai Masters.

As No. 2 seed, Murray was handed a bye into round two and he progressed to round three without hitting a ball due to an injury to Dmitry Tursunov - meaning his meeting with Wawrinka was his first taste of the courts in Shanghai.

Wawrinka famously beat Murray at the US Open in 2010, but Murray has had the look of a much improved player in the past couple of months and he had too many guns for the Swiss.

Murray, who had won his past two tournaments in Thailand and Japan, put Wawrinka on the back foot from the outset, with the Swiss double faulting to hand the British No. 1 a break.

Murray saved a break point of his own in the second game, demonstrating his all-round game by staving off the threat with a neat serve-volley move.

Wawrinka was broken for a second time, but Murray - so often guilty of losing focus - handed a break back thanks to a double fault and a wild smash that he should really have allowed to bounce. It proved to be the only lapse from Murray in the first set, as he won 80 per cent of points behind his first serve to dominate Wawrinka.

Wawrinka is a dangerous opponent for any of the top-ten players and he found his range on both wings to put Murray under pressure in the second set. Murray saved two break points from 15-40 down to level at 3-3 - with his first serve once again digging him out of trouble.

The Swiss continued to pile pressure on Murray with some punishing groundstrokes and broke through to take a 5-3 lead and closed out the set on his own serve. Despite dropping the second set, Murray still had a confident air about him and stepping in on a string of second serves from Wawrinka, he worked an immediate break.

Murray consolidated his break by working Wawrinka across the baseline with some crunching forehands and at the changeover the Swiss called the trainer for treatment on his lower back. The Murray onslaught continued in the fourth game and shortly after surrendering his serve for a second time, Wawrinka smashed his racket in frustration.

Wawrinka did not wave the white flag and broke back when Murray served for the match at 5-1, but it proved to be just a brief revival as Murray snapped a run of three Wawrinka games to close out victory.

After securing his progress into the last eight, Murray saw his path to the title open up with top seed Rafael Nadal dumped out by Florian Mayer and world No. 124 Matthew Ebden confirmed as his quarter-final opponent after the Australian upset eighth seed Gilles Simon 6-2 2-6 7-6(8).

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