Andy Murray made a profitable begin to his marketing campaign on the Swiss Indoors, Basel by seeing off Yannick Hanfmann 7-5 6-4 on Monday to succeed in the second spherical.
The previous world No 1, a quarter-finalist right here in Basel 18 years in the past, got here into the match on the again of two first-round exits in Beijing and Shanghai, however he battled exhausting earlier than defeating Germany’s Hanfmann.
Murray will tackle the winner of the match between eighth seed Sebastian Korda and Argentine Tomas Martin Etcheverry.
The 36-year-old confronted eight break factors and was damaged when he served for the match at 5-3 within the second set.
Nonetheless, Murray broke his opponent’s serve 4 instances to triumph in two hours and 19 minutes.
Large-serving German Jan-Lennard Struff snapped a four-match dropping streak to edge out American Christopher Eubanks 7-6 (9-7) 6-4, whereas Sebastian Baez fought his well beyond Christopher O’Connell 6-7 (3-7) 6-4 6-3.
The 22-year-old will subsequent meet high seed Holger Rune or Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic.
In Vienna, Karen Khachanov eased previous Roman Safiullin 6-4 6-4 in a primary profession assembly between the 2 Russians within the first spherical.
Khachanov, who claimed his fifth title – and first in 5 years – on the Zhuhai Championships on the finish of September, has made a triumphant return to kind after a stress fracture suffered on the French Open stored him out of the sport for 2 months.
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