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Murray advances at Barcelona Open

Andy Murray of Great Britain in 2011. UPI/David Silpa
Andy Murray of Great Britain in 2011. UPI/David Silpa | License Photo

BARCELONA, Spain, April 24 (UPI) -- Second-seeded Andy Murray sailed through a second-round victory Tuesday at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell tennis tournament in Spain.

Murray defeated Sergiy Stakhovsky 6-3, 6-2, improving to 4-0 lifetime against the Ukrainian player. Murray won just less than half of the points off Stakhovsky's serve.

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Even though he landed just 50 percent of his first serves, Murray won 72 percent of the points on serve and wasn't broken.

No. 6-seeded Nicolas Almagro, who lost 17 points in 12 service games, also claimed a second-round win, beating Edouard Roger-Vasselin 7-5, 7-6 (7-3). Ninth-seeded Fernando Verdasco needed just 73 minutes to get by Steve Darcis 6-3, 6-1 in his second-rounder.

The first round was completed Tuesday with one seeded player being eliminated. Fernando Gil roared past 12th-seeded Marcel Granollers 6-2, 6-2, winning nearly two-thirds of the points in the match.

No. 13-seeded Kevin Anderson advanced with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Malek Jaziri and 15th-seeded Bernard Tomic was a 6-3, 6-4 winner over Ernests Gulbis. Also, 16th-seeded Pablo Andujar stopped David Goffin 7-6 (7-2), 6-4 and No. 17 Albert Ramos advanced when, after Ramos built a 4-1 lead, Andreas Beck retired.

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Guillermo Garcia-Lopez ousted Olivier Bell 6-3, 6-3 and moves into the second round against No. 1-seeded Rafael Nadal, who has won this event six of the last seven years.

Other first-round winners Tuesday were Robert Farah, Victor Hanescu, Mikhail Kukushkin, Flavio Cipolla and Igor Andreev.

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