ANDY Murray cruised through 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 following his fourth round exit at the Australian Open.
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 No 1 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.
Dan Evans, meanwhile, put up a decent fight before falling in the second round of the Dubai Duty Free Championships to Gael Monfils.
The British number two, who is at a career-high ranking of 43, hit back impressively after losing the first set but was unable to maintain the momentum as fourth seed Monfils triumphed 6-4, 3-6, 6-1.
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