Andy Murray earned back-to-back victories for the first time this season, closing out his rain-hit match with 7-6, 6-3 win over Tomas Martin Etcheverry in Miami.
It was the Scot’s best victory of 2024 as he swept past the Argentinian world No.30 to reach the third round.
In doing so the 36-year-old gained a measure of revenge for his defeat by the same player in the first round of the Australian Open in January, a defeat a flat Murray then said “was a very poor performance.”
This time around he was sharper and his opponent didn’t have an answer to the improved showing.
The match had been suspended on Friday because of some rare Florida storms, but it was worth the wait as Murray, who won the Miami title in 2009 and 2013, snapped a nine-match losing streak against top 50 players and has now played 995 career tour-level matches.
“My body feels that,” said Murray, who turns 37 in May, “It feels like I’ve played a thousand. I’ve obviously been on the tour a long time. My first matches on tour were just as I turned 18 years old … It’s been a long career but an amazing career.”
A day after rain and wind delayed the start of play and suspended several matches, downpours again pushed the start of Saturday’s matches back by nearly three hours.
The match resumed at 3-3 before Murray convincingly won a first set tie-break 7-0. He then only needed the one break in the second set to make it to the third round.
Overall, Murray served 10 aces, hit 28 winners compared to 17 from his opponent, and saved seven of seven break points.
Elsewhere, Jannik Sinner advanced to the third round with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over fellow Italian Andrea Vavassori.
The third-ranked Sinner, the Australian Open champion and last year’s Miami Open runner-up, also had to wait overnight the storms forcing the match to be suspended on Friday with Sinner leading 3-2.
The 22-year-old Sinner stretched his record to 12-0 against fellow Italians on tour level.
“I thinks it’s a lot of difference between here and anywhere else,” Sinner said. “Here maybe the court suits me a little bit better because the ball is not that bouncy. But I feel just mentally quite free to play, and I think that’s most important.”
