Murray Stuns Dent; Rusedski Scrapes Through

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British teenager Andrew Murray continued his impressive Stella Artois Championship debut after stunning No. 9 seed Taylor Dent 6-3, 6-3 to reach the third round.

The 18-year-old Scottish wild card, who recorded his first ATP match win in the first round against Santiago Ventura, earned a meeting with sixth seed Thomas Johansson for a place in the quarterfinals.

"It was very tough because I had to keep concentration on my service games the whole way through because he's got one of the biggest serves, I think," said Murray. "If I had gotten behind in the sets, it's not so easy to break him. So I had to concentrate really hard on my service games the whole way through, and I think I did that quite well. So it looked like the result was maybe a bit easier than what it was."

Murray, the 2004 US Open Junior champion, took just 62 minutes to record his impressive win over Dent, who was playing in his first tournament since March after suffering from a left ankle injury.

Despite playing in front of a packed Centre Court crowd, Murray said nerves never played a part. "I don't understand why people would get nervous playing in front of your home crowd," said the Scot. "I play tennis to play in front of crowds like that, and anybody who doesn't, shouldn't really be playing. If you want to be one of the best, you're going to have to play in some big arenas. Here isn't half as big as what it is in some of the places, like in New York. So I just enjoy it when I play in front of those crowds. And especially when they're all with you, it makes it much easier."

Meanwhile, Greg Rusedski reached the third round of an ATP tournament for the first time this year after defeating Dmitry Tursunov at The Queen's Club
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Rusedski, seeded No. 14, struggled with his first serve all day but still prevailed 6-1, 6-7(3), 6-4 in 1 hour, 49 minutes and set up a third round meeting with fourth seed Radek Stepanek.

"I think it's just coming together," said Rusedski. "It's just getting comfortable. I think I've played reasonably well the whole season apart from maybe the clay court season. I never really got into that season, and historically I never have so it's not really unusual that time of year. But I'm looking forward to the next match against Stepanek. I'm excited. I won two matches back?to?back, and hopefully I can continue."

Rusedski, a semifinalist at the Stella Artois Championships back in 1997 (l. to Ivanisevic), took the first set in just 26 minutes despite making only 29 percent of his first serves.

However, Tursunov, who defeated Rusedski in their only previous meeting back in Memphis in 2001 in what was the first ATP tournament of the Russian's career, came back to win the second 7-3 in the tie-break.

The British No. 2 regained his focus at the start of the third set, breaking Tursunov in the opening game. Although he continued to struggle with his own serve, Rusedski held on without facing a break point in the last two sets and went on to close out the match.

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