Andy Murray makes light work of Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in Dubai
Thursday 2 March 2017 12:20, UK
Andy Murray remains on course for a first title of 2017 after a comfortable 6-2 6-0 victory over Guillermo Garcia-Lopez at the Dubai Tennis Championships.
Having overcame a sluggish start to beat Malek Jaziri on Tuesday in his first outing since a surprise fourth round exit at the Australian Open, there was no repeat from the Scot on Wednesday.
Murray needed just 72 minutes to see off the Spaniard for the loss of just two games in the first meeting between the pair since 2012 when Garcia-Lopez won in straight sets at Indian Wells, but five years on the world no 1 was in imperious form.
Murray's path to the final has also opened up after Roger Federer was stunned by world number 116 Evgeny Donskoy in a three-set, two-hour epic that saw the 18-time Grand Slam champion suffer one of the biggest shocks of his career.
Federer joins defending champion Stan Wawrinka, fifth seed Tomas Berdych as well as Gilles Muller and Roberto Bautista Agut in crashing out before the last eight, leaving Murray as red-hot favourite for a first ever title in Dubai.
Murray lost to Federer in the final at the Aviation Club Tennis Centre in 2012 and he has little trouble in advancing to a quarter-final meeting with Philipp Kohlschreiber who had little trouble in seeing off Daniil Medvedev after knocking out eighth seed Muller in the opening round.
"Every time we have played, we have had a lot of close matches," said Murray.
"He is a talented guy, he uses the angles of the court well and he plays with a lot of spin."
The German veteran has lost each of his past four meetings against Murray whose biggest danger is now the fourth seeded Gael Monfils but the world number will be pleased with his evening's work in the desert.
Garcia-Lopez made a bright start, keeping pace with Murray in the early exchanges but the Scot was far too strong and having wrestled control in the early stages he raced through the remainder of the match with some impressive shot-making as well as trademark defensive skills.
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Murray saved the one break point he faced on serve at 30-40 in the first game of the match before breaking the world no 97 Garcia-Lopez's serve for the first of five times in the fourth game of the first set.
"When I got the early break, pretty much was almost 30 minutes in and we'd only played four games," Murray said.
"Mentally, that was important for me, you know, to be up at that stage. I loosened up a bit after that and played really well."
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