Murray climbs past Montanes

Scot safely into second round in Doha

Last updated: 6th January 2009

Murray climbs past Montanes

Comfortable win: Murray

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Andy Murray continued his positive start to 2009 with a routine victory over Albert Montanes in the first round of the Qatar Exxon Mobil Open.

The British number one, fresh from beating Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer at an exhibition event in Abu Dhabi last week, overwhelmed his unseeded Spanish opponent 6-2 6-4 in 74 minutes.

Montanes, ranked 43 in the world, battled hard to hold serve during a 14-point opening game but that was about the high note of his afternoon.

Murray, the defending champion, defied the windy conditions to control proceedings from the back of the court while reeling off the next five games without alarm.

The Scot wasted three set points to allow Montanes to hold and reduce the deficit to 5-2 before duly serving out the opening set in the next game, despite having to save four break points.

Dominant

And the second set began in similarly one-sided fashion, Murray breaking twice on the way to opening a 4-0 lead.

Montanes briefly rallied with three games in a row - two love service holds sandwiching his first success on his opponent's delivery.

But Murray remained calm and held serve twice to close out the set 6-4 and seal the win.

His reward is a second-round date with unseeded German Philipp Petzschner, who had beaten Jeremy Chardy 7-6 (7-2) 6-3 on Monday.

Meanwhile, top seed Nadal also got his campaign off to a winning start with a 6-0 6-1 demolition of Frenchman Fabrice Santoro.

Federer also breezed into the second round by maintaining his perfect record over Italian Potito Starace with a 6-2 6-2 win in 48 minutes.