Andy Murray beats Guillermo Garcia-Lopez at Dubai Tennis Championships

Murray made light work of his opponent
Getty Images
Tom Doyle2 March 2017

World number one Andy Murray coasted to the third round of the Dubai Duty Free Championships with a swift victory over Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.

The Spaniard had won their last meeting in Indian Wells five years ago but there was no sniff of an upset here as Murray eased to a 6-2 6-0 to set up a clash with German Philipp Kohlschreiber.

Murray played himself into form during his opening win over Malek Jaziri - his first singles match for five weeks.

And he was on top of his game from the off against 97th-ranked Garcia-Lopez, striking the ball with great authority and pushing his opponent well behind the baseline.

Garcia-Lopez won fewer than half the points on his own serve and his only break point came in the opening game, which Murray saved with a confident backhand winner.

The world number one finished the match, which lasted just an hour and 12 minutes, with a run of eight successive games.

He is likely to find things tougher in the quarter-finals against Kohlschreiber, who has won only one of their five previous matches but taken sets in all of them.

Should Murray win that, a first meeting with Australian Open champion Roger Federer since 2015 is on the cards.

Additional reporting by the Press Association.

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