Watching helplessly as Andy Murray continuously pounded his second serve as if it were a paper piñata, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez opened his third-round match with the ignominious distinction of dropping serve six straight times.
So when Garcia-Lopez held serve for the first time all day, he allowed himself a small smile and raised an index finger, signaling his first hold.
Aside from a stirring tweener winner he hit on the second point of the match, Garcia-Lopez had little to smile about.
In an oppressive performance, Murray turned the 32nd-seeded Spaniard into his own personal punch line in administering a 6-1, 6-1, 6-2 thrashing that was so thorough, Murray’s only memorable unforced error came immediately after the match.
“It was a lot easier than the scoreline suggests,” Murray told Hall of Famer Jim Courier, before immediately correcting himself.
“Sorry, it was a lot harder than the scoreline suggests,” Murray said with a sheepish grin, hinting he knew the statement was a tough sell.
In a comprehensive conquest that was never in doubt, Murray converted eight of 11 break points and won 19 of 24 points played on Garcia-Lopez’s second serve to power into the fourth round of the Australian Open for the fourth time in the last five years.
The fifth-seeded Scot has surrendered just 18 games in tournament wins over Karol Beck, Illya Marchenko and Garcia-Lopez—not exactly the second coming of Hoad, Laver and Rosewall, but the way Murray has imposed his game is noteworthy.
Murray has applied his speed to assert himself offensively throughout the early rounds, and was particularly effective side-stepping quickly to his left and firing a series of inside-out forehands to corner Garcia-Lopez and set up the forehand down the line.
Though he’s been typecast as a pure counter puncher, Murray has more depth to his game than he sometimes shows. He possesses shrewd court sense and a lethal return of serve, is one of the quickest competitors in the sport and owns one of the most brilliant two-handed backhands in the game. But to win against top opponents, Murray knows he must keep his first-serve percentage up and continue to accelerate through his forehand, the shot he sometimes short arms when he gets tight.
Repeatedly ripping his forehand today, Murray was nearly untouchable on serve, cracking 10 aces against one double fault, dropping serve just once.
The degree of difficulty increases as the 2010 runner-up will meet either No. 11 Jurgen Melzer or the revitalized Marcos Baghdatis, who shed some weight in the offseason and looks to be in the best shape of his career, in the fourth round.
A Murray-Baghdatis match would be a battle of former Oz finalists. The 22nd-ranked Cypriot has won two of three meetings with Murray, including their lone hard-court clash, 6-1, 6-2, at Cincinnati in 2007.
—Richard Pagliaro