• Miami Masters

Murray rolls on in post-Lendl era

ESPN staff
March 23, 2014
Andy Murray first lifted the trophy in Miami in 2009 © AP
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Andy Murray continued life without Ivan Lendl by easing through to the last 16 of the Miami Masters with a ninth win from nine career meetings against Feliciano Lopez in front of his watching former coach.

Reigning champion Murray, who came from a set down to beat Matthew Ebden in his second round match, sealed the victory in straight sets 6-4 6-1 to move into the fourth round as he bids for a third triumph in Miami.

Lendl was sitting with Murray's camp for the match, after the pair announced their coaching partnership had come to an end on Wednesday.

Andy Murray's former coach Ivan Lendl was watching from the player's box © AP
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"We're back together again. It was only a four- or five-day split," Murray joked afterwards. "No, it's a shame he won't be watching many more of my matches from the stands."

Murray made a bright start to the match as he broke his opponent to love in the opening game. However, the British No.1 struggled on his first service game in his attempt to consolidate the break.

After long exchanges from the baseline, Lopez converted his fourth break-back point to make it 1-1 and stopped Murray from reclaiming an immediate break by holding his serve to go 2-1 in front.

Murray quickly levelled, and was gifted the break in the fifth game after Lopez double-faulted. At the second time of asking, Murray consolidated the break to move 4-2 in front, and despite Lopez trailing by one game at 4-3 and 5-4, Murray sealed the opening set without any problems on his serve.

Lopez then faltered at the beginning of the second set, handing the break to Murray following a wild forehand.

Murray was then given a second break after another uncontrollable forehand from Lopez, and very quickly Murray took the set 6-1 and wrapped up a comfortable victory with a neat backhand winner up the line.

The victory came on a sunny, 85-degrees Farenheit afternoon. Murray confirmed it was hot, although the Scot - who lives part-time in Miami - said Fahrenheit temperatures give him pause because he's more familiar with Celsius.

"I started using Fahrenheit a bit more, but I don't know the conversion," he said. "If I speak to someone back home and they say, 'How hot was it?,' and I say, 'It's 85 today,' and they say, 'What is that?,' I have absolutely no idea.

"I don't know how hot it was, but when we came over at like 9:30am it was already 80 Fahrenheit and it was extremely humid. They are not easy conditions.

"It's not always that easy to feel comfortable against him [Lopez] because there is not loads of rhythm with the way he plays.

"But I moved well, returned well. It was obviously a more comfortable scoreline than the other day [against Matthew Ebden]."

Murray's next opponent will be Jo-Wilfried Tsonga after the Frenchman completed a 4-6 7-6(6) 7-5 victory over Marcos Baghdatis when he was two points from defeat at 5-1 down in the second set tiebreak.

Roger Federer took just an hour and three minutes to reach the next round after the Swiss dominated his encounter against Thiemo De Bakker to win 6-3 6-3. Federer will now play Richard Gasquet after the ninth seed defeated Kevin Anderson 6-3 6-4.

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