Murray and Baltacha go through in Australia

Andy Murray cruised into the third round of the Australian Open thanks to a routine straight sets win over Frenchman Marc Gicquel.

Murray made mincemeat of his opponent in the first set, winning it 6-1 and showing off an expert knowledge of the court's angles, plus a mastery of spin and slice. However, as in the first round he struggled with his first serve percentage, whcih hovered around the 40 per cent mark.

The second set was more of a contest with Murray coming out 6-4 winner. Gicquel refused to roll over in the third set and broke Murray's serve after the Scot had taken a 3-1 lead. However, the Scot responded and took the set 6-3, winning the match in under two hours.

He will play either Finland's Jarkko Nieminen or France's Florent Serra in the next round.

Earlier Britain's number one woman Elena Baltacha caused an upset by beating the 30th-seed Kateryna Bondarenko to equal her best ever result at a Grand Slam.

Although the 23-year-old Ukranian is ranked 50 places above Baltacha, she beat her 6-2 7-5 in one hour and 34 minutes. It is only the third time the British player has reached the third round of a major and the first for five years. The previous occasions were at the Australian Open in 2005 and Wimbledon in 2002.

Baltacha broke into the world's top 100 for the first time last year and the 26-year-old said her performance was down to a newfound self-belief: "It's confidence. I used to look back. I used to do that a lot. I'm fed up doing that. It's all about looking forwards."

The other remaining Briton in the ladies draw did not fare so well. Katie O'Brien lost in straight sets to eight seed Jelena Jankovic. The Serb ran out 6-2 6-2 winner. ·