ANDY Murray believes he is playing well enough to win the Pacific Life Open at Indian Wells. The British No1, who reached the semi-finals of the California tournament last year, booked his place in the third round with a hard-fought win over Jurgen Melzer on Sunday night.
The Scot was caught out as the world No85 raced out of the blocks to win the opening four games but Murray recovered to prevail 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.
It was a fractious contest with both players openly voicing their frustrations at some shots or decis
ions. Murray swore loudly at times after losing points and both he and Melzer made complaints to the umpire about various rulings.
But as his Austrian opponent tired, Murray looked the more composed by the end and comfortably came through the final set to book a clash with Ivo Karlovic.
Murray said: "I played really well here and like the conditions. It is a tough draw but I am hoping I can play like I did last year.
"My game feels really good – I am moving well and volleying well. If I can maintain the level I had for the second and third sets I have a good chance of doing well here."
Murray admitted Melzer's flying start did take him by surprise. "I wasn't expecting him to come out and start smoking the returns like that," he added.
"He was just hitting clean winners and coming behind my second serves a lot. But once I started to get into the match a bit more and make a few first serves and get a bit more kick on my second serve, he started to miss.
"He wasn't able to come forward as much because I changed my tactics a bit and played more aggressive. I won the majority of my points after that and that's what I was most pleased about.
"Even though his tactics were good early on I managed to turn it around and was doing to him what he was doing to me."
Murray, who received a bye in the first round, now anticipates a difficult encounter with Karlovic, who saw off South African qualifier Rik de Voest.
The 20-year-old said: "It's one of those matches where I will have to play very solid and take my chances when I get them, there might not be many.
"But when I played him before I broke him two or three times and managed to come through against him. In conditions like this with the balls flying like they do here it is going to be tough to break him."
Big-serving Andy Roddick, the sixth seed, went down by 6-4, 6-4 to Germany's Tommy Haas in a second-round match, but world No1 Roger Federer advanced. Federer, fully recovered from a bout of mononucleosis (glandular fever), crushed Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-3, 6-2.
The Australian Open champion Maria Sharapova improved her 2008 record to 16-0 with a ragged 7-5, 6-3 win over Eleni Daniilidou of Greece, the No26 seed.
The second seed Svetlana Kuznetsova needed three sets to advance to the fourth round, finally overcoming Dominika Cibulkova, of Slovakia, 6-1, 4-6, 6-3.
The Russian, who lost to Daniela Hantuchova in last year's final, was relieved after a mixed display.
"I just stopped a little bit and lost my concentration," revealed lKuznetsova after her slump midway through the match. "I have to figure out how to start playing better earlier after being 5-0 down in the second set. I didn't want to go to the third set 6-0 down so I changed that to give me the key to play better in the third."
There two upsets in the women's event, American Ashley Harkleroad beating eighth-seeded Dinara Safina of Russia 7-5, 6-2 and India's Sania Mirza scraping past ninth seed Shahar Peer of Israel 6-7, 7-5, 6-3.
The full article contains 673 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
