Flushing Meadows, NY (Sportsbooks) - Former runner-up Andy Murray was an easy opening-round winner Wednesday at a very hot U.S. Open.
The fourth-seeded Murray mauled helpless Slovakian Lukas Lacko 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 in 1 hour, 51 minutes on yet another scorching day in the Big Apple. The British star doused Lacko with the help of six service breaks in the predictable encounter at Ashe Stadium, where the on-court temperature soared over 100 degrees for a third straight day.
"It was good," Murray said of his opener. "It wasn't necessarily the best tennis, but tricky conditions out there. It was very windy on the court. It was a guy I've never played against on the tour. I haven't really seen much of him play, so took a little time to get used to his game. But I did enough to win in straight sets, and that was the most important thing."
Murray was the 2008 U.S. Open runner-up to Swiss icon Roger Federer and also lost to Federer in this year's Australian Open title tilt.
Up next for Murray will be rising 6-foot-5 Jamaican Dustin Brown.
The last match of the night featured former champion Andy Roddick facing Serbia's Janko Tipsarevic in a second-round matchup. The former world No. 1 Roddick titled here in 2003 and was the runner-up to Federer in 2006.
In another second-round encounter, 17th-seeded Gael Monfils topped Igor Andreev, 6-3, 6-4, 6-3.
An eye-catching upset came when tough French lefthander Michael Llodra ousted seventh-seeded Wimbledon runner-up Tomas Berdych 7-6 (7-3), 6-4, 6-4 in 2 hours, 26 minutes. Llodra required a trainer to work on his foot during the second set, but the Frenchman returned to the court, unfazed by the ailment.
The stunned Berdych was unable to break Llodra's quality serve on Day 3.
The 6-foot-5 Berdych reached the semifinals at the French Open back in June and landed in his first career Grand Slam final at the All England Club in July, losing to world No. 1 superstar Rafael Nadal. The big Czech had been 11-2 in his previous 13 Grand Slam matches.
American teenager Ryan Harrison, making his U.S. Open debut, upset 15th-seeded former top-five star Ivan Ljubicic 6-3, 6-7 (4-7), 6-3, 6-4, while 20th-seeded American Sam Querrey got past NCAA champion and fellow American Bradley Klahn 6-3, 4-6, 7-5, 6-4. Ljubicic was a Masters event champion at Indian Wells earlier this season who struggled against the intense heat and the 18-year-old Harrison. Querrey is a four-time champion on the ATP World Tour this year.
Russian Mikhail Youzhny, the 12th seed, blew past Andrey Golubev of Kazakhstan, 6-2, 6-3, 6-3. Fourteenth-seeded Spaniard Nicolas Almagro came from behind to best Italian Potito Starace, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 7-6 (7-5), while No. 18 seed John Isner of the U.S. upended Frederico Gil of Portugal, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4.
Also, 25th-seeded Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka waltzed past Kazakhstan's Mikhail Kukushkin 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Germany's Philipp Kohlschreiber, the 29th seed, defeated fellow countryman Tobias Kamke, 6-2, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4.
Additional opening-round wins came for the aforementioned Brown, Frenchman Gilles Simon, Ukrainian Sergiy Stakhovsky, Argentine Juan Ignacio Chela, Israel's Dudi Sela, Switzerland's Marco Chiudinelli, Romanian Victor Hanescu and Spaniards Marcel Granollers and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez. The hot Stakhovsky, who topped Aussie Peter Luczak in four sets on Wednesday, is fresh off his hardcourt title in New Haven last week.
The 2010 U.S. Open titlist will claim at least $1.7 million.
