Murray on cruise control at Queen's

06-11-2009 | AFP

He is the first Briton to be seeded No.1 at the pre-Wimbledon warm-up event

Panama Star LONDON. Top seed Andy Murray made the perfect start to his Wimbledon build-up with a 6-1, 6-4 victory over Italy's Andreas Seppi in the second round at Queen's on Wednesday.

Murray, ranked third in the world, is the first Briton to be seeded number one at the pre-Wimbledon warm-up event and he looks capable of living up to that billing after easily brushing aside Seppi.

The Scot will play Spain's Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, a 7-6 (7/3), 6-3 winner over Gilles Muller, in the last 16.

Murray is ranked 45 places above Seppi in the Tour standings and even that gap didn't look wide enough as he took the opening set in just 22 minutes.

Another break for Murray at the start of the second set was followed by the first flicker of life from Seppi as the Italian broke back. But Murray just raised his game a level and broke again to go through.

While Murray had it easy, Australia's Lleyton Hewitt had to dig deep for a 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 victory over Frederico Gil that kept alive his bid for a record fifth Queen's title.