LONDON // Andy Murray emerged unscathed on a day of astonishing injury mayhem at Wimbledon as the world No 2 eased into the third round with a 6-3, 6-3, 7-5 win over Taiwan's Lu Yen-hsun.
Murray was never threatened by Lu's lightweight game and the US Open champion breezed through in two hours, in the process avenging an embarrassing defeat against the world No 75 at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
While Murray would never admit it publicly, he would also have been pleased with the news from the Wimbledon treatment table, with Roger Federer, French sixth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Croatian 10th seed Marin Cilic among the victims of an incredible run of injury withdrawals and upsets on Wednesday.
Federer, the seven-time champion, fell 7-6, 6-7, 5-7, 6-7 to the Ukrainian Serhiy Stakhovsky, ranked 116th in the world.
Tsonga and Cilic were Murray's most likely quarter-final opponents, but instead the highest ranked player left in the Scot's quarter is now Russian 20th seed Mikhail Youzhny.
As others were bemoaning the condition of the slippery All England Club courts, Murray kept his head and his footing, hitting 41 winners and serving 11 aces, to set up a last-32 clash with Spanish 32nd seed Tommy Robredo.
"I thought I kept my concentration well on serve and gave him very few opportunities after the first set," Murray said. "Each game I was putting a lot of pressure on his service games ... It's been a good start I'll try and keep it going."
Murray made history on Monday when he defeated Germany's Benjamin Becker to become the most successful British man in Grand Slam history as he surpassed Fred Perry's total of 106 matches won at the four majors.
HEWITT NOT DONE WITH WIMBLEDON YET
Australian Lleyton Hewitt said he fancies another crack at Wimbledon next year at the age of 33 after the 2002 Wimbledon champion was eliminated by the German qualifier Dustin Brown 6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 6-2. Asked if he would be back this time next year, Hewitt said: “Yeah, definitely.”
KVITOVA WALKS OVER TO THIRD ROUND
Petra Kvitova was handed a free pass through to the third round when Yaroslava Shvedova became the latest injury-enforced withdrawal from the tournament. Former champion Kvitova was handed a Court One assignment against Shvedova but the Czech did not need to leave the locker room.
CANADIAN TEENAGER UPSETS IVANOVIC
Eugenie Bouchard, last year's Wimbledon junior champion, playing in only her second grand slam, continued this year's giant-killing trend as the 19-year-old Canadian, ranked No 67 in the world, saw off the 12th-seeded Ana Ivanovic of Serbia 6-3, 6-3 to advance to the third round.
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