Murray, Djokovic Cruise into Third Round at Cincy

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Murray, Djokovic Cruise into Third Round at Cincy

By Chris Oddo

Andy Murray Cincy 12 Matthew Stockman Getty

(August 15, 2012)--Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic each scored straight-set wins in second-round play at the Western and Southern Open on Wednesday.

Murray, still on an emotional high from his Olympic gold medal-winning performance in London, pushed past American wildcard Sam Querrey with a workmanlike 6-2, 6-4 victory.

“There was a few doubts going into the match,” said Murray. “Obviously Sam’s had a very good summer, he’s won a lot of matches on the hard courts, and I haven’t played much.”

But Murray looked every bit as comfortable as his tall, imposing opposition today on the fast-playing hard courts in Cincinnati. After a downright breezy first set, the World No. 4 saved both break points he faced in the second set with some timely serving and confident ground strokes that kept Querrey on the outside looking in.

The defending Cincinnati champion will face Frenchman Jeremy Chardy in the third round, with a possible quarterfinal against Juan Martin del Potro looming.

Del Potro knocked out the resurgent Tommy Haas in straight sets earlier in the day. It was the third career victory in three attempts against Haas for Del Potro, but it was by no means a walk in the park.

The pair traded breaks in the early going of the first set, but at 5-5 Del Potro scored the decisive break, then served three aces in the next game to close out the tightly contested set.

In the second set, the Olympic bronze medalist took charge, saving the only break point he faced, and winning the final five games on the trot to seal the 7-5, 6-2 victory.

Haas won all nine of his first serve points in the second set, but when he missed, the big man made him pay, winning eight of eleven against the German’s second serve.

Djokovic Not Thrilled with Win over Seppi, but He’ll Take it

Second-seeded Novak Djokovic moved through with relative ease today against Andreas Seppi of Italy, but the five-time Grand Slam champion wasn’t too pleased with his performance.

“It wasn’t a great performance to be quite frank,” said Djokovic in an interview on the Tennis Channel set after the match. “I had a lot of unforced errors and I didn’t do anything special, I was just trying to really get used to the conditions.”

Djokovic was visibly flustered on court in the first set, when he failed to convert on each of his six break point opportunities. In the tenth game, with Seppi serving to stay in the set, the Serb missed on three set point chances, and to make matters worse he fanned on a soccer-style kick he attempted to make on a bouncing tennis ball after one of his errors.

But Djokovic, who trails World No. 1 Roger Federer by a mere 75 points for the ATP's top ranking spot at the moment, played a solid tiebreaker and took the game to Seppi in the second set, winning 13 of 26 points against the Italian’s serve and breaking twice while not facing a break point of his own.

The Serb moves on to face Nikolay Davydenko in round three. Davydenko, who hadn’t won consecutive matches since May, has notched straight-set wins over Alexandr Dolgopolov and Florian Mayer in the first two rounds.

“He’s a very fast, very dynamic, explosive player, so [the Cincinnati hard-courts] it's quite suitable to his style of the game, so we’ll see,” said Djokovic of the 31-year-old Russian.

Djokovic holds a 5-2 career edge over Davydenko, including victories in their last three matches.

Around the Grounds:

Milos Raonic won a tight three-setter against Marcos Baghdatis, 6-7(6), 6-3, 6-4. The World No. 19 broke in the ninth game of the third set, then saved a break point while serving out the two-hour, fifteen-minute battle.