ANDY MURRAY cruised into the US Open second round in New York and insisted his Olympic disaster was well and truly behind him.
World No.6 Murray had seen the form that had taken him to his first Masters title in Cincinnati in July desert him in Beijing when he was sent crashing out of the Olympic tennis men's singles by world No.77 Lu Yen-Hsun of Taiwan in the first round.
However, the sixth seed never looked like losing his grip on his opening match of the last Grand Slam of the year as a 6-3, 6-4, 6-0 defeat of Argentina's Sergio Roitman set up a second-round tie with Michael Llodra of France tomorrow.
"I'm feeling really confident just now regardless of what happened in Beijing," Murray said. "I feel I'm hitting the ball well. I feel mentally strong and physically I'm not tired so I want to do well here and today was a good start."
Murray did admit to first-round jitters as he returned to competitive action for the first time since that Olympic defeat. "I think before you get out on the court there is always maybe more nerves in the first round. Maybe by the second, third, fourth rounds, you get used to the court. No-one wants to go out in the first round but once you get onto the court and play four, five, six games, you get more comfortable and you relax a little bit.
"I was lucky I got off to a good start and calmed down a little bit after that."
Murray revealed he had adopted a new approach to big tournaments and that his work ethic away from the court was also paying dividends. "I play for myself and I work really hard off the court to try and get the rewards in these tournaments," he insisted.
"In the past, I felt nervous coming into the bigger tournaments but now that I've started to work really hard off the court you go into the matches with sort of no excuses, no worries. You just go on the court to play tennis and that's one of the few things that I'm good at. It's worked out much better for me this year."
New world No.1 Rafael Nadal advanced to the second round but his passage past Bjorn Phau proved anything but straightforward.
Seeded first in a major for the first time in his career, Nadal won 7-6 (7-4), 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) over feisty German Phau. Ninth-seeded American James Blake beat compatriot Donald Young 6-1, 3-6, 6-1, 4-6, 6-4.
Jelena Jankovic successfully began her quest for a first major championship while Svetlana Kuznetsova, Elena Dementieva and Lindsay Davenport also triumphed in the opening round of the women's singles. Jankovic, the world No.2 and second seed who has never reached a Grand Slam final, defeated American wildcard Coco Vandeweghe 6-3, 6-1. Third-seed Kuznetsova coasted to a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Shuai Zhang of China.
Olympic gold medallist Elena Dementieva enjoyed a 6-4, 7-5 victory over Akgul Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan, while Lindsay Davenport eased into the second round with a 6-4, 6-2 defeat of Canadian Aleksandra Wozniak.
British No.1 Anne Keothavong won her first ever Grand Slam match away from Wimbledon with a 6-2, 6- 2 victory over Alexa Glatch.
The full article contains 585 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
