Dubai: Both the pre-tournament favourites sailed through unscathed into the second round in an identical manner, while a two-time finalist fell to a qualifier on the opening day of the 2010 Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships here late on Monday.

After weathering a tough first-round encounter against Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez to win 6-4, 6-4, crowd favourite and world number four Andy Murray of Great Britain secured a 6-2, 6-3 win against 90th ranked Igor Kunitsyn from Russia to complete an otherwise calm day here at the Dubai Tennis Stadium.

“It was really tough out there especially after that long break after the Australian Open,” Murray admitted after spending an hour and 41 minutes for his win against the once-ranked No.30 from Russia.

The biggest upset, however, was the ouster of two-time finalist Feliciano Lopez, who went down 7-6 (3), 6-4 at the hands of Austrian qualifier Stefan Koubek.
Lopez, who fell to Roger Federer in three sets in 2004 and then again to Andy Roddick in 2008, went down to the guile of the Austrian qualifier, who stuck to a percentage game from the baseline.

And then later, if it was not Djokovic’s win in the first match of the evening session that brought the crowd to its feet, then it was certainly a gutsy performance from Murray that gave the packed house its money’s worth.

Murray took two minutes short of an hour to wind up the first set –of which 24.30 minutes were spent on winning the second game alone that included 14 deuces for his first break of the encounter.

The longest known singles game in the Open era of tennis went to an amazing 31 minutes. It was one of 37 deuces (80 points) between Anthony Fawcett of Rhodesia and Keith Glass of Great Britain in the first round of the Surrey, Great Britain Championships played at Surbiton, Surrey on May 26, 1975.

On Monday night, that one game unofficially the second longest in Open era tennis history - proved to be turning point for the Scot who is looking to be the first Briton to win the title here since this tournament began way back in 1993.

Murray went on to wrap up the set 6-2 in 58 minutes and then broke early for a 1-0 lead in the second. However, Kunitsyn showing much better fitness broke back and then both players went on serve till Murray took his chance on the sixth game and then held for 5-2 to finally wrap up set and match in an hour and 41 minutes.

“I am glad to come through with that. Fortunately I served well and that helped a lot as I was not getting too many free points out there,” Murray added.

Doubles delight

Earlier, Indian fans had a lot to cheer about after Mahesh Bhupathi teamed up with Max Mirnyi, while Leander Paes and Lukas Dlouhy became the first doubles quarterfinalists on Monday.

Seeded No.3 here, Bhupathi and Mirnyi sailed past the UAE-Kuwaiti duo of Mahmoud Nader and Abdullah Magdas 7-5, 6-0, while the second-seeded pairing of Paes and Dlouhy also went through a tougher tie 7-6 (7), 6-3 against Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski at the lower end of the draw.

Results:
(Singles) Jurgen Melzen bt Simone Bolelli 6-1, 7-5; Marcos Baghdatis bt Gilles Simon 7-6 (3), 6-4; Stefan Koubek bt Feliciano Lopez 7-6, 6-4; Ivan Ljubicic bt Jan Hernych 6-2, 6-7, 6-4; Viktor Troicki bt Rainer Schuettler 6-3, 6-4; Novak Djokovic bt Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-4, 6-4; Andy Murray bt Igor Kunitsyn 6-2, 6-3.

(Doubles) Mahesh Bhupathi/Max Mirnyi bt Mahmoud Nader Al Baloushi/Abdullah Magdas 7-5, 6-0; Lukas Dlouhy/Leander Paes bt Mariusz Fyrstenberg/Marcin Matkowski 7-6 (7), 6-3.