Novak Djokovic Breezes Through, Murray Exits

Novak Djokovic Breezes Through, Murray Exits

World number one Novak Djokovic, who triumphed his fifth grand slam crown at the Australian Open in January, eased into the third round of the Indian Wells ATP tournament on Saturday while Andy Murray made an early exit.

Djokovic, champion here in 2008 and last year, delivered a trashing 6-3 6-2 to Kazakhstan qualifier Andrey Golubev, breaking his opponent's serve twice in each set to triumph in 1 hour 20 minutes.

"It was a good start," the Serbian athlete said in a courtside interview. "We didn't play a beautiful match and there were a lot of unforced errors but look, it's the opening match of the tournament for me and I am still getting used to the conditions and adjusting to the court.  Hopefully the next match will be better," added the Serb.

Djokovic, who beat Spaniard Rafa Nadal in last year's final, will next face South African Kevin Anderson.

World number four Murray, runner-up at Indian Wells in 2009, was beaten 6-4 6-2 by 92nd-ranked Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez. This is the second year in a row the Briton was eliminated in his opening match at Indian Wells.

"My return let me down and he hardly missed the ball," Murray said after being broken once in the opening set and twice in the second. "I hit my backhand poorly tonight, no question.

"With the level of tennis nowadays you get no easy first round matches and you play a poor match, that's what happens," he added.

Posted by Andre Monohan on Monday March 12 2012, 5:10 AM EDT. Ref: Yahoo. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under World. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0