ANDY Murray secured his place in the third round of the Madrid Open with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Marius Copil.
The world No 1, who is continuing his return from an elbow injury after reaching the semi-finals in Barcelona, eventually forced a late break in a tense opening set before his superior power came through against the 26-year-old Romanian.
Copil, who will move into the top 100 next week, had initially put up some strong resistance, having saved two break point chances on his opening service game of what developed into a tight first set.
With both players holding, Murray went ahead at 5-4, which put more pressure on the Romanian as he served to stay in the set.
The Scot did not let his chance slip, forcing Copil into a long return from the corner before another fine passing shot from Murray brought up a set point.
Copil put a return into the net as Murray claimed the first set in 47 minutes.
Despite the momentum now being with Murray, Copil continued to find his range, holding a testing fourth game having squandered a 40-love lead to level at 2-2 on serve.
Murray, though, slowly upped the tempo, forcing another deuce on Copil’s next service game that saw a double fault followed by a break chance, which this time the world No 1 claimed when the Romanian’s backhand was long.
Murray, set to also play in Rome ahead of the French Open, soon moved 5-2 up with a straightforward hold which left Copil serving to save the match.
However, Murray, who will turn 30 next week, was forced to wait until the next game after another brave response from the world number 104.
Murray, though, made no mistake on his serve, forcing Copil into errors to complete his straight-sets win in one hour and 24 minutes after another long return by the Romanian.
Meanwhile, Eugenie Bouchard produced a brilliant fighting display to win her grudge match against Maria Sharapova.
The pair faced each other in the second round in Spain with Bouchard winning 7-5, 2-6, 6-4 in a competitive and tense match.
Canadian Bouchard had called Sharapova “a cheater” prior to the Russian’s return to competitive action in April after a 15-month doping ban.
It was world No 60 Bouchard’s first ever win over Sharapova, whom she believes should be banned from tennis for life.
Sharapova was initially banned by the International Tennis Federation for two years after testing positive for meldonium.
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