Murray again goes three sets in Brisbane

BRISBANE, Australia, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- No. 1-seeded Andy Murray again needed to rally for a three-set win Wednesday in the second round of the Brisbane International tennis tournament in Australia.

Murray came from behind Tuesday in winning his first-round match and had a similar route to victory Wednesday, eventually beating Gilles Muller 4-6, 7-6 (7-4), 6-0. Muller had a decided edge before Murray pulled out the second-set tiebreaker and then Murray ran away with the third set, losing just seven points.

With his second-round match taking two hours, Murray has piled up more than four hours of playing time in just two matches in Brisbane. He isn't scheduled to play singles Thursday but does have a doubles match.

No. 2-seeded Gilles Simon topped James Duckworth 6-3, 7-5 and third-seeded Alexandr Dolgopolov edged Igor Andreev 6-7 (3-7), 7-6 (11-9), 6-2 but Marcos Baghdatis eliminated fifth-seeded Kei Nishikori 6-3, 6-4.

Sixth-seeded Radek Stepanek beat Jarkko Nieminen 7-6 (7-3), 6-2 and No. 8-seeded Bernard Tomic took just 44 minutes to breeze past Tatsuma Ito 6-1, 6-2. Santiago Giraldo defeated Philipp Petzschner 6-4, 6-4 and Denis Istomin advanced when Tommy Haas was unable to play Wednesday because of a right calf injury.

The quarterfinals schedule has Murray going against Baghdatis and Istomin playing Tomic in the top half of the draw. Simon meets Giraldo and Dolgopolov faces Stepanek in the other half.