BRITISH tennis No.1 Andy Murray advanced to the third round of the Rogers Cup with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Sweden's Thomas Johansson in the ATP Masters event in Toronto.
The world No. 9 and eighth seed, who was making his first singles appearance since losing in the quarter-final of Wimbledon to eventual champion Rafael Nadal, won the first set with a decisive break in the tenth game.
The 21-year-old from Dunblane
struggled with his serve throughout, dropping his opening two service games in the second set, before demonstrating his now familiar resilience to triumph over the 1999 champion of this event in one hour 38 minutes.
The Scot was set to play Switzerland's Stanislas Wawrinka later today.
Wawrinka, the world No.10, has won three out of five career meetings with Murray and was a 6-3, 6-4 second-round winner over Russia's former world No.1 Marat Safin.
Murray was level at one-all in career meetings with No.64 Johansson prior to the second-round contest – he had received a bye in the opening round.
He had won the most recent encounter in Qatar earlier this year in straight sets en route to his fifth ATP Tour title, while the 33-year-old Swede won at Queen's in 2005.
Murray missed an opportunity to break in Johansson's opening service game as the first set went with serve until the sixth game.
The Swede capitalised on his first break-point chance but Murray immediately broke back.
Murray then held serve and broke Johansson for the second successive service game to clinch the first set.
The Scot's second serve continued to trouble him, with Johansson breaking in the opening game of the second set before holding serve.
Johansson then claimed a 3-0 lead with a further break, but relinquished full control of the set by allowing Murray to immediately break back. Murray held serve for the first time in the set in the fifth game and his comeback was complete when he broke Johansson again in the sixth. After each player held serve, Murray won another service game to go 5-4 up before breaking Johansson for a fifth time in the match to secure the triumph.
Meanwhile, Roger Federer's troubled season continued when he followed his crushing loss in the Wimbledon final with a shock defeat by Frenchman Gilles Simon in Toronto.
Back on court for the first time since his five-set loss to Nadal at the All-England Club, the world No.1 appeared ready to take out his disappointment on Simon by winning the first four games on the way to the opening set.
But Simon, riding the momentum from his championship win in Indianapolis on Sunday, refused to buckle under the pressure, battling back to beat the 12-times grand slam titles winner 2-6, 7-5, 6-4 and reach the third round.
It was the first time Federer had lost his opening match in a tournament since falling to Murray in Dubai in March.
"The hardcourt season just started so it is not the end of the world but I wish I could have started better," Federer said. "I like this surface, I like this tournament, I have done well in the past here so it definitely hurts.
"I have to regroup and look forward. The bigger picture is the Olympic Games and the US Open and those are the places I really want to win so I have to make sure I am ready for that."
Federer's No.1 ranking, which he has held for 234 weeks, is also now under serious threat from his great rival Nadal. The Swiss held a commanding 1445-point cushion at the top at the start of the year but if Nadal wins in Toronto for a second time on Sunday the deficit will be sliced to less than 300.
The 22nd-ranked Simon represented a tricky opponent for the rusty Federer, who had only resumed practice four days before arriving in Toronto and received a first-round bye.
Simon, meanwhile, was well into his hardcourt campaign after claiming his fourth career win and second title of the season in Indianapolis with a straight-sets victory over Russian Dmitry Tursunov. "I was playing like I was in a dream," Simon said. "I just saw the ball and hit it as hard as possible."
Wimbledon champion Nadal returned to action with a hard-fought 6-4, 6-2 win over American Jesse Levine.
