Murray has to put in double shift to make his way beyond both Mahut and Matosevic

With persistent rain falling on Wednesday afternoon world 
No 2 Murray had to return to centre court yesterday morning to complete his second-round match with Nicolas Mahut.

After seeing off the Frenchman the reigning US Open champion moved on to a third-round match with Australian Marinko Matosevic later in the afternoon.

The world No 65 struggled to deal with Murray from the off and succumbed to a 6-2 6-2 defeat without ever truly challenging the Scot.

Murray broke Matosevic’s serve in just the third game of the opening set, but it was a second break of serve, to take a 4-1 lead, that really put the Briton in the driving seat with a combination of a perfect backhand down the line and a well-executed lob opening up what proved to be an unassailable gap.

Murray polished off the first set in just 26 minutes and promptly broke Matosevic, who had been handed a walkover into the third round after the withdrawal of Michael Llodra, at the beginning of the second.

Like the first set, Murray again broke for a 4-1 lead, but Matosevic broke back immediately to keep himself in the match.

However, that hope was short-lived with Murray breaking serve once again in the next game and serving out to secure safe passage into the final eight.

The 26-year-old 2012 Wimbledon finalist had waited almost three-and-a-half hours to face Matosevic after successfully negotiating his way past Mahut earlier on.

With the second-round match resuming with Murray leading 6-3 2-2, the second set continued to go with the serve and ended in a tie-break.

Murray kept his cool to complete a 6-3 7-6 (7/4) win over the man who had knocked him out at the same stage 12 months ago.

He remains on course to meet fourth seed and French Open semi-finalist Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the semi-finals if he can beat Germany’s Benjamin Becker today.

Third seed Juan Martin del Potro eased to a straight-sets victory over Dan Evans to end the British wildcard’s hopes of causing another upset at Queen’s.

The 23-year-old had already seen off Guido Pella and 13th seed Jarkko Nieminen to set up a meeting with the world No 8, but the Argentinian proved far too strong for Britain’s Davis Cup star.

Ranked 292 places below his illustrious opponent, Evans could not cope with Del Potro and lost 6-0 6-3 in just 57 minutes on centre court.

Del Potro will face four-time Queen’s champion Lleyton Hewitt for a place in the semi-final while Evans will move on to Wimbledon, where he has a qualifying wild card entry.

French second seed Richard Gasquet swept aside Jurgen Melzer 6-3 6-1 in the second round of the Gerry Weber Open in Halle.

Gasquet needed just an hour and five minutes to dispatch his Austrian opponent, dominating on serve and breaking four times to Melzer’s none.

The Frenchman was joined in the next round by the three German seeds in action.

Third seed Tommy Haas battled past Latvia’s Ernests Gulbis 7-6 (7/5) 6-4. Philipp Kohlschreiber, the sixth seed, saw off his fellow countryman Tobias Kamke 6-4 6-3 and eighth seed Florian Mayer saw off Argentina’s Leonardo Mayer 6-2 6-3.