Murray wins in St Petersburg

Andy Murray took a huge step towards booking his place in the prestigious Masters Cup competition with a handsome victory over Fernando Verdasco to clinch his second ATP Tour title of the year in the St Petersburg Open.

The British number one ran out 6-2 6-3 winner over his Spanish rival and is now ideally set to challenge for the final place in the Shanghai event, which is open to the top eight in the ATP 2007 Race.

Victory in Russia, in his first appearance at the tournament, means he is now just three qualifying points behind current number eight Tommy Haas with only one ranking event – the Masters Series in Paris – to play.

Murray, as he seems to do in big matches, settled quickly into his stride and won the first set at a canter in his third final appearance of 2007.

Both men won their first service games but Murray found a way through in just the third game, breaking a nervy-looking Verdasco who produced an unforced error on his backhand to hand his opponent the game.

Murray lost the first two points of the next game but battled back well on serve to go 3-1 ahead, closing out the game with a fine drop shot – a good sign after he gifted Dmitry Tursunov a handful of points attempting a similar tactic earlier in the competition.

Two more games followed serve before the Scot produced a second break, producing some bold attacking tennis to take a three-game lead.

One nerveless service game later and the first set was his.

The second set has often been Murray’s stumbling block – as witnessed in his epic clash with Mikhail Youzhny in the last four – but this time he broke at the first attempt, continuing his dominance of the Spaniard by beating him to love on his own serve.

The next two games passed without incident and in the fourth game of the set Verdasco finally tested the 20-year-old.

He brought Murray to deuce on his own serve with some intelligently-positioned shots but when a break seemed imminent Murray pulled out his best winner of the match on his way to a 3-1 lead.

Murray spurned three break points in a mammoth game which Verdasco eventually held to make it 3-2.

The Scot then earned himself two match points as he claimed a second break of the set, claiming the first to triumph 6-3.