By ,
Published November 20, 2014
Defending champion Andy Murray was an easy second-round winner Wednesday at the $1.28 million Japan Open Tennis Championships.
The top-seeded world No. 3 star posted a 57-minute 6-1, 6-2 victory over Slovakia's Lukas Lacko to secure a spot in his 11th quarterfinal this year.
Lacko has now lost all but 1-of-27 sets against Top-10 players.
Murray beat 2010 champion Rafael Nadal in last year's Tokyo finale.
Next up for Murray, the U.S. Open champion and Olympic gold medalist, will be seventh-seeded Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka, who outlasted Frenchman Jeremy Chardy 7-6 (7-1), 6-7 (6-8), 7-5.
Meanwhile, in first-round action, third-seeded Serbian Janko Tipsarevic rallied to beat France's Gilles Simon 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 and fourth-seeded Argentine Juan Monaco handled Bulgarian qualifier Grigor Dimitrov 6-2, 6-1. Simon was fresh off his runner-up finish in Bangkok last week.
Monaco is coming off last week's win in Kuala Lumpur, his first title on a surface other than clay.
The winner of this event will claim a first prize of $308,000.
https://www.foxnews.com/sports/murray-advances-to-tokyo-qfs