Murray beats Taylor Dent to advance to 4th round

Andy Murray rushed to victory last night at the US Open to ease into the fourth-round after he defeated the US wild card Taylor Dent 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 in just 90 minutes at Flushing Meadows.

Dent, the favourite of a noisy partisan crowd, was making his first appearance at the tournament for four years, and although the 28-year-old had shown a lot of skill and courage to reach this round, beating Ivan Navarro in a five-set marathon in the second round, it looked like being an embarrassing night ahead for him after Murray took the first nine points to establish a 2-0 lead in the first set.

But Dent, a former World No 21, tenaciously fought back, breaking Murray to return to parity. The Scot made few mistakes after that, losing only one more game on his way to the first set. He stepped up another level in the next set, taking his first service conversion rate, which had only one in two during the opener, up to 80 per cent.

There were few further alarms for the tournament's No 2 seed, as he closed out the final set without a break against his service, although there will be concerns in the Murray camp that his first serve is proving so erratic, a flaw that better opponents than Dent will be sure to exploit.

Murray's fourth-round match will be against Marin Cilic, who is seeded 16 for the US Open. The dangerous Croat beat Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan 6-1, 6-4, 6-3 in the third round, but Murray will feel he has the measure of the player, having won all three of their previous encounters.

Elsewhere the No 5 seed Andy Roddick, who beat Murray in the semi-final at Wimbledon and took Roger Federer to a five-set classic in the final before succumbing to the Swiss, was knocked out 7-6, 6-3, 3-6, 5-7, 7-6 by his fellow American John Isner. ·