Defending champ Murray rolls over Argentina’s Monaco at Olympics

Andy and brother Jamie were removed from the doubles earlier this week in two tiebreak sets by Brazilians Andre Sa and Thomaz Bellucci. He will have been heartened, too, by Novak Djokovic’s first-round defeat here to Juan-Martin Del Potro.

British No 1 Johanna Konta also progressed to the quarter-finals, but had to battle back from a set down to complete a gruelling 3-6 7-5 7-5 win over eighth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova.

Djokovic’s Games are definitely over, though, and the world number one revealed after his doubles loss on Monday night that he will skip the Masters event in Cincinnati next week and will not play again until the US Open.

Looking to show off his obvious dominance, Murray won each of the opening three games before Monaco hit back to reduce the deficit to one.

“Playing every day two matches in a row is not easy on this surface and in these conditions”.

The 29-year-old Scot, who won gold for Great Britain in London four years ago, made short work of his Argentinian opponent on Tuesday afternoon and will now look forward to a last-16 showdown against Italy’s Fabio Fognini or Benoit Paire of France. “It was a good match”.

In the women’s tournament, American world number nine Madison Keys reached the quarter-finals after outlasting Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro 6-3 3-6 6-3.

Murray reeled off five games against the world number 108 and was soon 4-0 up in the second set before going on to claim victory in just 69 minutes.

In the last eight, the 25-year-old will play either second seed Angelique Kerber or Australia’s Sam Stosur.