Murray advances at Monte Carlo

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MONACO -- Fourth-seeded Andy Murray eased past Victor Hanescu of Romania 6-3, 6-2 Tuesday to reach the third round of the Monte Carlo Masters.

The British player twice dropped serve early to trail 2-1 in the opening set, but took the next four games for a commanding lead.

He broke Hanescu, a French Open quarter-finalist in 2005, in the seventh game of the second set to take a 5-2 lead, and then converted his fourth match point when the Romanian hit a forehand return into the net.

Murray, who lost to Roger Federer in the U.S. Open final last year, next takes on the winner between 14th-seeded Marin Cilic and Fabio Fognini of Italy. If he wins that, he will reach a clay-court quarter-final for the first time.

"It takes time, I never played that well on clay especially in the last couple of years," Murray said. "I played solid and he made some mistakes. I was happy with the way I played for my first match on clay this year."

Also in the second round, sixth-seeded Gilles Simon lost 7-5, 6-1 to Andreas Beck of Germany.

Simon, who twice beat Federer last year, said the loss to a qualifier was the worst he could recall.

"I don't remember ever playing so badly. Nothing was right. Nothing was working. My forehand, my backhand, my serve, nothing," Simon said. "I played so bad today that I couldn't have beaten anyone."

In first-round matches, No. 12 David Nalbandian of Argentina beat Paul-Henri Mathieu of France 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, and Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia upset ninth-seeded Gael Monfils of France 6-3, 6-1.