Andy Murray advances past Yen-Hsun Lu to Wimbledon third round

Andy Murray celebrates during his match against Yen-Hsun Lu of Taipei. Picture: Getty Images

The world number two has been overshadowed by the Marcus Willis show during the first week at the All England Club but looks primed to take centre stage.

From 3-1 behind in the opening set, Murray lost just three games in a 6-3 6-2 6-1 win that lasted an hour and 40 minutes. He will play Australia’s John Millman next on Saturday.

Murray told the BBC: “The first set was tough. There were a lot of close games, I managed to hang on at the end of the first and then settled down towards the end of the second and was hitting the ball much better in the third and feeling more comfortable.

“If you can win matches easily it does help because you can rest. It has been a good start. I will just try and do my best - work hard, keep my head down and hopefully have a good tournament.”

Lu had not taken a set off Murray since beating him in their first meeting at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, losing in Indian Wells and at Wimbledon in 2013 and at Queen’s last year.

But the 32-year-old’s grass-court confidence, a product of his two Challenger titles and 11 straight wins, was clear from the off and he took advantage of a slow start by Murray to break serve in the opening game.

It took the second seed six games to recover, breaking back when Lu dumped a backhand in the tramlines at the end of a 28-stroke rally.

Murray then made it four games in a row as the consistency Lu showed in the early stages deserted him.

The British title hope missed one set point with a backhand wide and then had to save two break points before clinching it when Lu netted a backhand.

Murray did not hit top gear in the first set despite winning it but he found his groove at the start of the second, breaking Lu again with a dinked forehand pass.

In the next game he won a point with the kind of down-the-line winner that electrified Centre Court during his win over Richard Gasquet eight years ago.

Lu stopped his losing run at seven games in a row and then saved two break points to avoid going 4-1 down.

That seemed to restore his confidence but there was clearly nothing wrong with Murray’s as he saved a break point with an outrageous drop shot that landed within inches of the net.

Murray did not want to lose his momentum and let out a cry of ‘Come on!’ at the end of the game.

A succession of drop shots put Lu in trouble again and he double-faulted to go down a double break before Murray served out the set.

Murray was again following through on his determination to keep the early-round matches short and sweet, having dismissed countryman Liam Broady in straight sets in round one.

That match had got tighter as it went along but this was the opposite, with Murray now right in the groove.

It took him just four points to break serve at the start of the third set and Lu’s afternoon looked like it was coming to a rapid end.

The Chinese Taipei player would be ranked higher than 76 but for the four months he spent sidelined following elbow surgery in January.

He also has Wimbledon as well as grass-court pedigree having beaten Andy Roddick to reach the quarter-finals in 2010.

But he had no answer to Murray and, although he finally brought to an end another run of seven straight games, it was merely delaying the inevitable.

He netted a forehand on his first match point but Lu double-faulted on the second and Murray pumped his fist at his box in recognition of a job well done.

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