Tennis: Murray on the move at Australian Open
British star Andy Murray said his improved movement in Saturday's easy third round win over quirky Frenchman Michael Llodra pointed to better times ahead in the Australian Open.
The two-time finalist defeated the 46th-ranked Llodra 6-4, 6-2, 6-0 in 1hr 49min on Hisense Arena and he will play Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan in the round of 16 on Monday.
The fourth seed, who has lost to Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic in the past two Melbourne finals, was always in control of the erratic Frenchman, breaking his serve six times.
The Scot, who turned on the excitement along with unpredictable Llodra, said he was pleased with his progress in the year's opening grand slam.
"Tonight was good. My movement was way better than the first two matches. I moved great," Murray said.
"That's a good sign for me because when I move well, the rest of my game goes well. That was the most pleasing thing for me about tonight.
"But I need to keep improving, do things a bit better each round. Tonight I did a lot of things better, so I look forward to the next one."
Murray and Llodra produced many crowd-pleasing rallies with some amazing angled net pick-ups for winning points.
"There were a lot of fun rallies, especially towards the end of the second set, beginning of the third set and he played well," Murray said.
"Every point seemed to be a fun point. He was coming up with some unbelievable gets on the volleys and I was managing to dig up a lot at the net. It was a fun tennis match which isn't normal at the grand slams.
"(Coach) Ivan Lendl would have preferred a few more bread and butter points, serve and forehand finish, but that was my style of tennis tonight and I hope everyone enjoyed it."
Murray hit an impressive 48 winners with the backhand his predominant scorer with 19 winners. He now has the 97th-ranked Kukushkin next up in Monday's match for a quarter-final spot.
"He was very good when I played him in Brisbane this month, the first six games he was unbelievable," Murray said of the Kazakh.
"He hardly missed a ball. He was hitting the ball huge, going pretty much down the line on every shot and cleaning lines."
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