Fatigue and shoulder injury can't stop Andy Murray in USA

Olympic champion Andy Murray shrugged off shoulder trouble and the fatigue that followed his heroics in Rio to reach the third round of the Western & Southern Open.

Andy Murray defeated Juan Monaco, of Argentina in Cincinnati. Picture: John Minchillo/AP

On Sunday the Scot came through a gruelling four-set encounter with Juan Martin del Potro to win the Olympic gold medal and barely three days later he was back on court, this time against another Argentinian, Juan Monaco, in Cincinnati.

Murray needed treatment on his shoulder during a tricky first set but soon recovered from the niggle to close out a 6-3, 6-2 in one hour and 17 minutes.

“It’s really humid here, quite different conditions to Rio,” Murray told atpworldtour.com. “The court here is pretty fast. Rio was a lot slower than this. It took a bit of time to get into it, but I did all right.”

His next opponent will be South Africa’s Kevin Anderson, who surprised 13th seed Richard Gasquet to win 6-2, 6-4.

Stan Wawrinka and Rafael Nadal also enjoyed winning starts but Nick Kyrgios was an early casualty. Nadal defeated Uruguay’s Pablo Cuevas 6-1, 7-6 (7/4) while Wawrinka beat teenager Jared Donaldson 2-6, 6-3, 6-4. Kyrgios bowed out on the back of a 7-6 (7/2), 4-6, 7-6 (8/6) loss to Borna Coric, whose prize is a match against Nadal.

In the women’s event Angelique Kerber kicked off her campaign to replace Serena Williams at the top of the WTA rankings with victory over Kristina Mladenovic in Cincinnati.

The German will become the new world No 1 if she wins the Western & Southern Open, from which Williams has withdrawn due to a shoulder injury.