Murray marches, Zverev impresses on debut

Andy Murray has kicked off his Madrid Open campaign with a comfortable win over Marius Copil. The world No.1, who has struggled for form in 2017, needed just two breaks of serve to seal the 6-4 6-3 win in 84 minutes.

Murray is now 11-0 in his opening matches in Madrid, and is 16-5 for the season. He is chasing his second title of the year, following his win in Dubai.

“When I started to control the points more towards the end of the first set and second set, I was hitting the ball pretty clean, creating a few chances. I didn’t give him any opportunities,” Murray told the ATP. “It was good for the first match.”

Alexander Zverev enjoyed a successful Madrid debut, easing past Spanish veteran Fernando Verdasco. The German, who goes into the tournament on a five match win streak, took a single break of serve in each set to book a second round meeting with Marin Cilic.

“He was serving at a very high level for the whole match. It was very complicated, especially at the beginning of the match, to return his serves,” Verdasco said. “After that, if I managed to serve well, I didn’t manage to cause him any trouble. It was not easy for me to play after he served.”

Elsewhere, David Goffin continued his impressive run of form, beating Florian Mayer 7-6(3) 6-0; Eighth seed Dominic Thiem was a 6-3 6-4 winner over Jared Donaldson; and Ivo Karlovic came through a mammoth three hour tussle with Roberto Bautista Agut, winning 7-6(4) 6-7(9) 7-6(7).

Finally, hopes of an all-Aussie clash in the second round were dashed when Ryan Harrison took a 7-5 4-6 6-2 win over Bernard Tomic. The American will face Nick Kyrgios in round two.