The former World No. 1 Andy Murray reached the third round of the Indian Wells Open with a 6-4, 6-3 win against Moldovan Radu Albot on Saturday.
Murray produced a stunning performance to beat Albot in a match that lasted for one hour and 42 minutes.
Albot worked hard to make the opening set challenging as he sought to earn his 100th victory at the tour level. But Murray grabbed charge when he broke to start the first set and let out a loud cheer.
The two men engaged in chess-like manoeuvring battles to outwit the other. The disparity was made clear by Murray's 18 unforced errors compared to Albot's 35.
"I felt very nervous today. I'm not sure exactly why. Obviously I've played a lot of tennis coming in, maybe I saw it was an opportunity for me. Maybe wasn't as well prepared. I'd gone over my strategy and everything with my team to play Carreno Busta and then found out late last night the change of opponent," ATP.com quoted Murray as saying in his on-court interview.
"We'd not played each other before, and maybe [I] thought it was a bit of an opportunity. Had lots of break points again, but wasn't quite able to get them. It was quite tricky conditions at the beginning, very windy. But I did well, in the end, to get through," Murray said.
Jack Draper, another British player who made a strong showing at the 2023 BNP Paribas Open on Saturday, will be Murray's next opponent. In his first tournament at Indian Wells, the 21-year-old defeated his countryman Daniel Evans 6-4, 6-2 to go to the third round.
Draper defeated Evans, the 24th seed, in two hours at Stadium 5 by converting four of ten break points. Draper's victory in the second round at the Indian Wells followed his brilliant opening performance there, in which he defeated Swiss Leandro Riedi on Thursday with just two games lost.
The lefty has proven his ability to go deep at ATP Masters 1000 level before -- he reached the quarter-finals of the National Bank Open Presented in Montreal last August.
( With inputs from ANI )
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