Murray gives Great Britain perfect start

The Scot showed no ill-effects from his Australian Open exertions and had no apparent problems adapting to the newly-laid clay at Petco Park, home of the San Diego Padres baseball team, as he raced to a 6-1 6-2 6-3 win.

Young, the world No 79 who replaced the injured John Isner in the US team, had no answer to Murray’s game as the Wimbledon champion wrapped up victory in the first rubber of this World Group quarter-final.

Murray went into the match on the back of a run to the quarter-finals in Melbourne and still feeling his way back into the rigours of the main tour after back surgery.

But he needed no time to find his feet on Friday as he broke twice in each set to finish the match in one hour 38 minutes.

He was dominant on serve, not even facing a break point in the first two sets and saving the two he did in the third, and laid brutally into Young’s second serve.

“It’s important to get off to a good start,” said Murray.

Murray said the court had played slower than during practice over the past days because of the damper conditions, but added: “It’s still pretty slippy, it’s tough to change direction.”

This is Britain’s first World Group quarter-final since 1986 and their last victory over the US in the competition came way back in 1935.

The leading players tumbled in the quarter-finals of the Pattaya Women’s Open yesterday, with Ekaterina Makarova the only seeded player to reach the last four of the Thailand tournament.

Third seed Sorana Cirstea was the highest ranked name to crash out of the last eight, going from a position a strength to a 1-6 7-6 (7/3) 6-0 defeat at the hands of Czech Karolina Pliskova.

Russia’s Elena Vesnina, the fifth seed, also ran out of a steam in a tough match against Julia Goerges and was eventually beaten 5-7 6-3 6-3 by the German.

Eighth seed Peng Shuai of China was ousted in straight sets by another Czech, Andrea Hlavackova, falling 6-2 7-5. Russian Makarova was the only player to buck the trend, the fourth seed battling past veteran Japanese Kimiko Date Krumm 6-2 4-6 6-4.