Murray strolls through at US Open

Andy Murray began his US Open campaign with a crushing defeat of Argentina's Sergio Roitman at Flushing Meadows.

The British number one put his Olympics disappointment behind him with a straightforward 6-3 6-4 6-0 victory.

Murray, 21, broke world number 107 Roitman at the first attempt and was never threatened as he raced away to win in one hour 35 minutes.

He will play Michael Llodra in round two after the Frenchman beat Teimuraz Gabashvili 6-3 5-7 7-6 (7-5) 7-6 (7-4).

Llodra teamed up with Arnaud Clement to beat Murray and his brother Jamie in the Olympics doubles two weeks ago, but the Scot will be a strong favourite in singles.

"I'm feeling really confident just now regardless of what happened in Beijing," he said.

"I feel I'm hitting the ball well. I feel mentally strong and physically I'm not tired so I want to do well here and this was a good start."

Roitman went into Monday's match having lost all nine of his previous Grand Slam matches, and the 29-year-old never threatened to end that losing run.

"I thought it was pretty decent," Murray said of his performance. "I didn't lose my serve the whole match.

"I thought he played pretty well for about a set-and-a-half. He was hitting his forehand really hard and making me do a bit of running.

"It was a decent test and I came through it pretty well."

Sixth seed Murray, who lost in the first round of the singles at the Olympics, had too much variety for clay-court specialist Roitman.

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" Very promising start from Andy "

The Argentine was unable to break despite Murray serving at less than 50% throughout the encounter.

A couple of big forehands helped Murray to an immediate break, and he served out the set with little fuss. It was a similar story after he broke in game five of the second set.

The errors began to flow from Roitman and Murray grabbed three successive breaks on his way to winning the third set, sealing victory with a stunning backhand winner.

"It was quite tight, the end of the second set, and once I won that it was going to be a long way back for him," Murray said.

"Obviously I felt much more relaxed after I won the second set and started to return a bit closer, stepping a little bit closer and coming forward a little bit, and being a bit more aggressive."

Murray revealed he had adopted a new approach to big tournaments and his work ethic away from the court was also paying dividends.

"I play for myself and I work really hard off the court to try to get the rewards in these tournaments," he insisted.

"In the past, I felt nervous coming into the bigger tournaments but now that I've started to work really hard off the court you go into the matches with sort of no excuses, no worries.

"You just go on the court and play. That's one of the few things that I'm good at. It's worked out much better for me this year."

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