Murray and Watson coast into Miami third round with impressive wins

Britain’s Andy Murray booked his place in the third round of the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami yesteday with a routine straight-sets victory over Colombia’s Alejandro Falla.

After receiving a first-round bye, Murray was quickly into his stride at the hard-court event, forcing five breaks of his opponent’s serve on his way to a 6-2, 6-3 win in 76 minutes.

The triumph was Murray’s first at this event in three years following defeats in his opening matches in 2010, against Mardy Fish, and at the hands of Alex Bogomolov Jr last year.

The world number four was also coming off a surprise second-round defeat by Guillermo Garcia-Lopez at Indian Wells last time out, but the manner of his dismissal of world number 71 Falla suggests the Scot is coming back to form. Murray will play big-serving Canadian Milos Raonic in the third round on Sunday.

Meanwhile, fellow Brit, 19-year-old Heather Watson, took the biggest scalp of her fledgling career in Miami by dumping world number 25 Lucie Safarova out with a 6-2, 6-1 trouncing.

Watson, ranked 129 in the world, broke the Czech’s serve five times during the match to ease into the third round, where she will meet world number 1 and new Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka.