ELEANOR CROOKS

Andy Murray had a dig at his critics after cruising into the second round with a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Dmitry Tursunov yesterday.

The win was only the British No.1's fourth on clay this season following his second-round defeat by Stanislas Wawrinka in Rome last week. But he insists, after climbing back into the world's top 15 in the new ATP rankings, that he is improving on the surface and his progress is on track.

The 20-year-old said: "I haven't played that many matches on clay so to expect me to play well every single week is too much. I lost a tough match against a tough guy last week and a bit too much was obviously made of it. I had chances in the second set and I didn't feel I played my best.

"I'm playing better on clay this year and I'm feeling a bit more confident. I'm sliding very well so hopefully I can have another good match tomorrow.

"There's a lot of things I need to improve on but I'm ranked 14 in the world and supposedly I've been having a very bad year so far. I think I've played pretty well and don't have any points to defend over the next few months so hopefully my ranking will get even higher, and hopefully I'll get back into the top 10 very soon."

Murray's performance was a far cry from last year when he injured his wrist in the same event, putting him out of action for more than three months.

Tursunov is one of the most unpredictable players on the tour and a known hater of clay, and the variety in Murray's game kept him a step ahead throughout.

The Scot gained the first break of serve in the third game and maintained that advantage to take the first set. Tursunov held his serve at the start of the second set but that proved to be his last moment of success as Murray rattled off six successive games. Twice Tursunov was broken after leading 40-0 and an awful smash that flew several feet long settled the match in Murray's favour.

The 15th seed, who will face Gilles Simon, the Frenchman, in the second round, was pleased with the way he nullified Tursunov's game. "Dmitry is a tough guy to play against because he's so unpredictable, he can hit some huge shots but he can miss balls you don't expect him to, like the one on match point," Murray said.

"I played really well today. I served well for most of the match, didn't get broken and I was happy with the way I played."

Meanwhile, Rafael Nadal warned that the decision of the Spanish Tennis Federation (RFET) to host their Davis Cup semi-final against the United States in Madrid could backfire.

Nadal and the rest of the Spanish players, furious that their wish to play the tie at sea level was ignored, signed a letter saying they would refuse to appear at promotional events for the RFET while Pedro Munoz remained president.

"We never had any problem with playing in Madrid," Nadal said. "But we can't accept that the president told us 100 times that we were going to decide, and then we don't decide."

The ball moves slower at low altitude, which would generally suit clay-court specialists Spain, who play the Americans from September 19-21.