Bautista Agut powers past Andy Murray, into quarter-finals at Basel

Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut, the No 6 seed, defeated Andy Murray 6-3, 6-2 to reach the last 8 of the Swiss Indoors at the Halle Saint-Jacques in Basel on Thursday.

The Spaniard leveled his all-time head-to-head with Murray at three wins apiece as he won for the third consecutive time against the Scot – Bautista Agut improves to 38-17 on the season.

Bautista Agut, ranked No 22, will face the winner of the match between American Brandon Nakashima and Swiss Stan Wawrinka next.

In their last meeting Bautista Agut dropped just one game against Murray – for the former world No 1, it was one of the worst losses of his career. Only two other times has he failed to win more than a game (against Djokovic in Miami in 2007 and against Federer at the World Tour Finals in 2014).

This time Murray was much closer. He had break points at 3-3 in the opening set, but failed to convert and dropped the final three games.

In the second set Bautist Agut broke Murray in the first game, and added an insurance break for 5-2 before closing out the victory in one hour and 40 minutes.

The 34-year-old Spaniard won against Serb qualifier Laslo Djere (6-4, 6-1) ahead of his victory.

In the previous round, Murray, ranked No 49, edged out Russian qualifier Roman Safiullin (6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-4).

Basle ATP 500, other second-round results (Halle Saint-Jacques, EUR 2.135.350, most recent results first):

• Holger Rune vs. Ugo Humbert
• Brandon Nakashima vs. Stan Wawrinka
• Felix Auger-Aliassime vs. Miomir Kecmanovic
• Alexander Bublik beat Albert Ramos-Vinolas: 6-3, 6-3
• Pablo Carreno Busta (5) beat Dominic Stricker (WC): 7-5, 6-7 (3), 6-4
• Carlos Alcaraz (1) beat Botic van de Zandschulp: 6-4, 6-2
• Arthur Rinderknech (Q) beat Alex Molcan: 6-2, 6-4

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