Murray beats Bautista Agut to win third Shanghai Masters title

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Andy Murray powered his way to a third Shanghai Masters title by beating Spanish 15th seed Roberto Bautista Agut 7-6(1) 6-1 in Sunday's final to close in on Novak Djokovic at the top of the world rankings.

(Reuters)

Bautista Agut beat world number one Djokovic in the semi-final on Saturday but was brought back down to earth by three-times grand slam champion Murray, who converted all his four break points to wrap up the match in one hour 36 minutes.

Bautista Agut forced a tight opening set into a tiebreak, but the 29-year-old Briton raised his level to then win seven points in a row.

World number two Murray took control of proceedings in the second set as an aggressive Bautista Agut, who hit 25 unforced errors during the match, failed to maintain his intensity.

Murray, who won the China Open in Beijing a week ago, edged closer to Djokovic in the world rankings and is now 915 points behind the Serb, with a chance of finishing the year as world number one.

(Reporting by Shravanth Vijayakumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Toby Davis)