Murray, Wawrinka reach third round at Australian Open

Andy Murray is not resting on his laurels after a comfortable start at the Australian Open, with the world number two feeling there is room for improvement.

Ivanovic said she feared the worst for the spectator, “So I just hope the lady was fine”.

Murray also suggested his opponent may have suffered from some pre-match nerves, having never previously played at the Rod Laver Arena.

In his first match on Rod Laver Arena, Groth was dealt a bagel in the first set as a dominant Murray set the tone for the 6-0 6-4 6-1 result.

It temporarily seemed like there might be a game on, but Murray instantly recovered his groove as another backhand pass helped him break at 5-4 and take a two-set advantage.

“The question you ask yourself is: ‘How is he going to hurt Murray?”, said the 1997 US Open finalist. As one of the respected elders on the tour, he had a combative response to reports published at the start of the tournament that match-fixing had gone unchecked in tennis. It was a shame that he lost his first-round match here. “What a #fighter! Its a very special night”, former Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli leads the tributes to the 34-year-old.

Murray’s brother, Jamie, and his new partner, Bruno Soares, won their first-round match in the doubles, with one familiar face on the other side of the net.

Two-time Grand Slam victor Stan Wawrinka faces a tough test against Lukas Rosol.

Jamie, who parted company with John Peers at the end of a year ago, won his first title with Soares in Sydney last weekend. He converted seven out of the 14 break point chances that he achieved.

Murray, however, regrouped and broke Groth’s serve to seal the set then ran away with the decider to set up a third round clash with Portugal’s Joao Sousa.

Despite being in the final four times, the Scot has still to lift the trophy and his determination was undiminished as he wrapped up victory in just 91 minutes.

On the other main courts besides Rod Laver Arena, Victoria Azarenka was in action. Muguruza will next play Barbora Strycova, who beat Vania King 7-6 (5), 6-4. She’s also an artist. Konta struck her ground strokes with consistent accuracy, covered the court well and on several occasions showed a fine touch when chasing down drop shots.

Azarenka has thus had plenty of reason to perform her “dab” celebration, popularized by National Football League quarterback Cam Newton. “I’ll play a lot of long rallies, I’ll hit a lot of balls”.

He said: “The time difference is a problem in some ways but at least like when I’m sleeping, I’m not worrying about it, obviously”.

“He was someone I loved watching growing up”.

Hewitt’s 20th bid to win the Australian Open ended in the second round in a 6-2, 6-4, 6-4 loss to eighth-seeded David Ferrer.

“Playing for Australia has always been my biggest honour”.

Tributes have poured in over the past few months and Murray offered up one of his own.

“A lot of the guys play a quite similar game nowadays and Sam’s obviously quite different – coming to the net a lot and trying to get forward at every opportunity”, Murray said afterwards.