Andy Murray was unable to significantly trouble Daniil Medvedev as he fell to a 6-4 6-2 in the second round of the Miami Open on Saturday.
Medvedev will move back to the top of the world rankings should he reach the semi-final of the competition, having been replaced by Novak Djokovic after a short reign, and he looks on track to do so after an impressive performance.
The current US Open champion fired down four aces in the first set and got the break at love in the third game as Murray, three years on from hip surgery, moved around the court with a slight limp.
Murray, who notched up his 700th career win at Indian Wells two weeks ago, fended off two break points in the fifth game of the second set but Medvedev converted on his third chance as the Brit fell trying to pivot on the baseline.
Medvedev converted again in the seventh, dropping just two of his first-serve points in the set, and closed out the affair in just under 90 minutes at Hard Rock Stadium. The Russian did not face a single break point all match. He next faces Pedro Martinez of Spain.
“It’s never easy when you play Andy,” said the top seed. “I knew that from the first to the last point on the match I had to be there.”
It was the sixth tournament in a row where three-times Grand Slam champion Andy Murray had gone out in the second round, after a positive start to 2022 when he lost to Aslan Karatsev in the final in Sydney.
“My level of tennis is obviously not right now where it needs to be to win matches like that,” Murray told reporters.
“Today there were some good signs on the court but the two sort of key things in tennis are serve and return, and I didn’t do either of them particularly well.”
Murray is not taking part in the clay-court season, so his attention will now turn to a long training block ahead of a return to the grass courts.
