Murray Cruises Past Brown; Stakhovsky Saves 3 M.P.

© AFP/Getty ImagesAndy Murray has reached two Grand Slam championship finals.

Fourth seed Andy Murray kept alive his bid to win a first Grand Slam championship by knocking out Dustin Brown of Jamaica 7-5, 6-3, 6-0 on Friday for a place in the US Open third round. It was his 25th hard-court win of the season.

Murray, who won this year’s Olympus US Open Series, finished runner-up to Roger Federer in 2008. He could earn up to an additional $1 million in prize money if he goes on to win the title.

"I just started to read his game a bit better," Murray said. "I've not really ever seen him play before. He has a very fast service action, so it took a few games to start to read the serve a little bit. He started off very, very flashy.

"I just had to focus on playing solid and making as many returns as possible. When you play as high risk tennis as that, it's difficult over five sets to keep it up."

The 23-year-old Scot committed just 15 unforced errors and ran through the second and third sets in just 46 minutes. Over the past five weeks, Murray has reached the LA Tennis Open final (l. to Querrey) and won the Rogers Cup in Toronto (d. Nadal in SFs; d. Federer in final).

He will look to continue his progress when he next confronts Swiss No.2 Stanislas Wawrinka, a 7-5, 6-3, 6-4 winner over Argentine Juan Ignacio Chela.

"I tried my best out there today," admitted Brown, "and that's why I'm just happy. I can't be upset after having a tournament like this, playing well in New Haven, beating three good guys in the quallies there, and then beating Ramirez Hidalgo here. It's just been two good weeks in the States. Hopefully when I get back to Europe I can keep connecting the dots and keep playing like this."

Ukrainian Sergiy Stakhovsky saved three match points from 3-6 down in the fifth set tie-break against American qualifier Ryan Harrison, aged 18 years and three months, for a 6-3, 5-7, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(6) victory to extend his winning streak to seven matches.

Harrison, who made his Grand Slam championship debut at the Australian Open in January, fought back from a 1-3, 0/40 deficit in the fifth set and looked on course to join fellow qualifier Kei Nishikori in the third round. But Stakhovsky kept his nerve in a tense match on Grandstand that lasted four hours and 13 minutes.

"It was a great experience," said Harrison. "I've always believed in myself and I've always believed that I could come in here and compete at this level. But to go out there and actually execute and to win some of the matches I did, I'm extremely happy about and extremely proud."

Stakhovsky, the 2004 junior runner-up, hit 15 aces and 58 winners overall for his 24th win of the season. Last week he lifted his fourth ATP World Tour title at Pilot Pen Tennis in New Haven (d. Istomin). "It was [a] nice atmosphere," said Stakhovsky. "Except that 99.9 per cent of the people were against me."

Buy Tickets | TV Schedule