Andy Murray breezed through his third round match against 25-year-old Joao Sousa of Portugal as widely expected today in Melbourne, with a convincing straight sets win that sets him up nicely for a highly-anticipated re-match with his Wimbledon conqueror of last year, the Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov in the last-16 on Sunday.
In winning the match 6-1 6-1 7-5 in a little over two hours, he was mainly untroubled against an opponent ranked number 55 who he has never previously lost to on the tour. That record remained intact as Britain's number one reeled off an impressive 39 winners en route to his success, utilising the strong wind on court to his advantage.
He did however suffer a slight loss in focus in the third set, after establishing a break of the Portuguese man's serve and leading 4-1, allowing Sousa to break back. Any thoughts of an unlikely comeback were stifled though as Murray re-established his dominance and took the set 7-5.
Murray now moves on to the last-16 where he faces Dimitrov, after the number ten seeded required five sets to overcome the canny Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis, a former finalist in the Australian Open. It had looked like the more experienced player was going to spring yet another surprise in this year's tournament, as he established a 2-1 set lead, but the Bulgarian hung in there and claimed the final two sets to eventually progress to the re-match with Murray.
