Andy Murray crushes Coric to set up Goffin clash in Paris

By Julien Pretot

PARIS (Reuters) – Andy Murray demolished Croatian teenager Borna Coric 6-1 6-2 in the second round of the Paris Masters on Wednesday to set up a Davis Cup-flavoured clash with Belgium’s David Goffin.

Britain and Belgium meet in the Davis Cup final in Ghent from Nov. 27-29 with world number three Murray and Goffin, who eased past Serbian qualifier Dusan Lajovic, expected to clash in a singles rubber.

Although the Davis Cup tie will be played on clay, Murray believes he can pick up some tips from Thursday’s match against Goffin.

“Any time you spend time on court with opponents you can learn about their game,” the Scot told a news conference.

“It’s obviously good to play against him. But I will obviously, before the tie, watch matches of him playing on clay to learn and understand his game better on that surface.”

Murray needed less than an hour to dismiss the 18-year-old Coric, converting four of his five break points while never allowing his opponent the chance to steal his serve.

Earlier, the 16th-seeded Goffin swept aide Lajovic 6-2 6-2, converting five of eight break points.

The other top guns also progressed smoothly.

Seventh seed Rafa Nadal, who has been improving recently as the end of a tough season looms, barely broke sweat in a 6-2 6-2 defeat of Czech Lukas Rosol.

He next faces either South African 11th seed Kevin Anderson or Austrian Dominik Thiem.

World number two Roger Federer, on the back of his Basel title, dispatched Italian Andreas Seppi 6-1 6-1 to set up a meeting with American John Isner.

Japan’s Kei Nishikori, the sixth seed, survived a barrage of aces to beat France’s Jeremy Chardy 7-6(4) 6-7(6) 6-1, securing a third-round meeting with another Frenchman, Richard Gasquet.

Chardy fired 17 aces but it was not enough to unsettle Nishikori, who played better on the key points.

The 10th-seeded Gasquet looked solid in a 6-2 7-5 victory against Argentine Leonardo Mayer.

The Paris Masters is the last tournament before the season-ending ATP World Tour finals, which will be played between the eight best players of the season from Nov. 15-22 at the 02 arena in London.

World number one Novak Djokovic, Federer, Murray, Stan Wawrinka, Nadal, Tomas Berdych, Nishikori, and David Ferrer have all qualified.

(Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Ken Ferris and Pritha Sarkar)