Murray advances at Indian Wells

World No.2 Andy Murray has won his first ATP match since the Australian Open final to safely advance to the third round at Indian Wells.

Andy Murray has recorded his first ATP Tour win since becoming a father with a 6-4 7-6 (7-3) victory over Marcel Granollers in the Indian Wells Masters.

Murray helped Great Britain to a Davis Cup win over Japan last week but this was his first action on the tour since his Australian Open defeat to Novak Djokovic.

Murray has made plenty of news off the court since then, however, welcoming the birth of his first child last month and earlier this week rebuking Maria Sharapova for her drug test failure.

On the court in Indian Wells on Saturday, Murray overcame a break in the first set and then took the second in a tiebreak against his Spanish opponent.

"It was very different conditions to what I have been practising and playing in in the past five weeks, against a tough, unorthodox player," Murray said.

"He's got quite a different game. He's very smart player, as well, intelligent player, and often makes the right decisions."

Earlier, third seed Stan Wawrinka easily handled Illya Marchenko 6-3 6-2 and sixth seed Tomas Berdych cruised past Juan Martin del Potro 7-6 (7-4) 6-2.

Canadian Milos Raonic took only 55 minutes to dispatch Inigo Cervantes.

Raonic, playing for the first time since a groin injury contributed to his heartbreaking five-set semi-final loss to Murray at the Australian Open, was delighted with his form.

"To come out, and really not know how things are going to go, find your rhythm well early on, do the fundamentals well, dictate the match, I'm very pleased with that," Raonic said.

"When I look at the overall picture of my progress, development, I have to be very pleased. I've incorporated a lot of new things in my game.

"I'm getting more efficient coming forward at the net and I think I'm able to put more and more pressure on my opponents."

Frenchman Gael Monfils and Richard Gasquet both advanced, while controversial Australian Nick Kyrgios was docked a point for swearing in his loss to Albert Ramos 7-6(4) 7-5.


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Source: AAP



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