It’s so easy for Murray
Andy Murray moved closer to retaining his St Petersburg Open title by breezing past Ernests Gulbis 6-4, 6-2.
British No1 Murray showed glimpses of his best form as he beat the highly-rated Latvian in just over an hour to record his 50th win of the year.[>
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Murray broke serve twice in both sets to set up a quarter-final against Serbia’s Janko Tipsarevic, who beat Frenchman Jeremy Chardy 6-4, 7-6.[>
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World No4 Murray is attempting to win successive tournaments, following his victory in the Madrid Masters last week. But Gulbis defied the 46 ranking-point difference between the two in the opening exchanges and matched Murray until the eighth game of the first set.[>
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Three errors from Gulbis, 20, presented Murray with a golden chance to break the Latvian’s serve but he responded well before Murray eventually took the game to deuce and then opened up a 5-3 lead.[>
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Gulbis broke back, but Murray responded immediately by breaking his opponent to love to take the first set.[>
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The pair’s only previous meeting had been at Queen’s this summer, when Murray needed three sets to win.[>
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This time it proved easier as the Scot broke Gulbis’ serve twice again in the second set to seal the win.[>
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He had to survive an early scare in the first game of the second set when Gulbis wasted a break point.[>
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Top-seed Murray held his nerve and then broke Gulbis in the sixth game to take a 4-2 lead before holding serve for 5-2.[>
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In the eighth game of the set he had two break points but needed only one to complete his victory.[>
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Home favourite and eighth seed Marat Safin crashed out, losing to Kazakhstan’s Andrey Golubev 6-4, 6-2. [>