Defending champion Andy Murray eased into the quarter-finals of the Japan Open with a commanding 6-1, 6-2 victory over Lukas Lacko.
The British No1 complained of a bad back yesterday after battling to beat Ivo Karlovic 7-6, 6-4 in his first match since winning the US Open three weeks ago.
Today, though, he brushed aside the Slovakian in 57 minutes having got off to a flier, breaking the world No65 to love in his opening two service games for a 4-0 lead.
Lacko, who reached the final in Zagreb in February, was gifted a break point when the Olympic gold medallist committed a second double fault but Murray rattled off three points in a row to take the opening set in just 25 minutes.
The second set followed the same pattern with Lacko winning just 12 points in the match.
Murray will face much stiffer opposition on Friday when he plays Stanislas Wawrinka for a place in the semi‑finals. The world No3, who leads their head to head 7-4, said: “He is playing very well. He had a good US Open and also did well in Cincinnati, where he made the semi‑finals. I think hard courts are a good surface for him. We had a lot of tough matches over years especially on hard courts.”
Seventh seed Wawrinka edged France’s Jeremy Chardy in a close three-setter 7-6, 6-7, 7-5.
The Swiss No2 sent down 19 aces to his opponent’s eight in a match that lasted two hours and 37 minutes but knows he will have to step things up. Wawrinka said: “Andy is playing great, he won the Olympics, he won the US Open and he always plays great here.
“It’s going to be tough, for sure. It’s always tough to play against top-five player. You need to focus on what you are going to do and try to play your best game.”
Third and fourth seeds Janko Tipsarevic and Juan Monaco reached the last eight with wins over Gilles Simon and Grigor Dimitrov respectively.
