Murray eases through at US Open

Andy bounces back in style

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COMFORTABLE: Andy Murray in action against Sergio Roitman.

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’s superb form that had taken him to his first Masters title in Cincinnati last month deserted him in Beijing when he was sent crashing out 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,” said Murray.

“I feel I’m hitting the ball well. I feel mentally strong and physically I’m not tired. I want to do well here, and that 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.

“Before you get out on the court there are always more nerves in the first round. Maybe by the second, third, fourth rounds, you get used to the court,” he admitted.

“No-one wants to go out in the first round but actually, once you get onto the court and you play sort of 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 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 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.”

Elsewhere, British women’s No.1 Anne Keothavong won her first Grand Slam match away from Wimbledon with victory over Alexa Glatch.