Murray off to winning start in Monte Carlo

Tennis: Andy Murray began his clay-court season with a straight-sets win over Romania's Victor Hanescu in the Monte-Carlo Masters…

Tennis:Andy Murray began his clay-court season with a straight-sets win over Romania's Victor Hanescu in the Monte-Carlo Masters today.

Murray overcame a sluggish start to win 6-3 6-2 in one hour and 25 minutes to book his place in the third round.

The fourth seed was broken twice in succession in the opening set as the first four games all went against the serve, but eventually gained control of the match to continue his impressive season so far.

"I'm very happy with it," Murray said when asked about his performance.

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"The start was tough, he played a few good shots and broke me a couple of times but I'm happy with the way I moved.

"I was getting good shape on my shots and didn't make too many mistakes. I could have served a little better but apart from that I'm very happy."

Murray confirmed his status as the form player of 2009 by beating Novak Djokovic in the final of the Miami Masters 10 days ago to clinch his third title of the season and the biggest of his career so far.

The Scot has so far struggled to match his success on hard courts and grass on clay, failing even to reach the quarter-finals in any event last year.

But the 21-year-old feels today's win will help him rediscover the different type of movement needed on the game's slowest surface.

"It's just practice, you need to let it happen," Murray added on Sky Sports 1.

"It's easy on clay when the ball is out wide to panic a little bit but you cut the corners much better if you slide into the shot.

"The top players do that very well and I've been working on that the last few days."

Hanescu gave Murray a taste of his own medicine with a couple of superb drop shots in the early stages as the match began with a flurry of service breaks.

But once Murray became the first man to hold serve and broke again to lead 4-2, there was only going to be one winner.