MIAMI: Britain's Andy Murray won his 499th career match on Sunday, downing Colombian Santiago Giraldo 6-3, 6-4 to reach the fourth round of the ATP and WTA Miami Open.
The 27-year-old Scotsman, who won the Miami title in 2009 and 2013, would become the ninth active player to reach 500 victories if he wins his next match against South African 15th seed Kevin Anderson, who eliminated Argentina's Leonardo Mayer 6-4, 6-4.
"Hopefully I can win some more throughout my career," Murray said. "Maybe it doesn't happen in a couple of days. I hope it does. But if not, then, you know, I'm sure at some stage I will get there.
"I obviously want to try and win more, and hopefully still have quite a few years ahead of me left to add to that number. It's a lot of wins. It's not easy these days to win that many matches, so that's a good sign."
Third seed Murray, the 2012 US Open and 2013 Wimbledon winner, needed five match points over two games to claim the victory, his third in four meetings with Giraldo. The Scot advanced on a let cord bounce after a run of unforced errors on his previous winning chances.
"I played well, I thought it was a good performance," said Murray. "I hit the ball pretty clean.
"He came out and started swinging a bit towards the end of the match and made it a little bit tricky, but I thought for the most part I played very well."
Murray won in 84 minutes, breaking three times and hitting 19 winners took advance. Against Anderson, Murray has three wins from four matches, the last in Valencia last year.
"He's obviously used to these conditions here. He lives 45 minutes away, so he plays and practices in this weather a lot," Murray said of his next foe. "I won't have as much of an advantage against him as maybe some of the guys, because he's used to the conditions here. It will be a tough match."
Murray trains in Miami during the off-season.
In the women's draw, third seed Simona Halep defeated Italy's Camila Giorgi 6-4, 7-5 to continue the momentum she took from last week's title at Indian Wells.
The Romanian overcame five double-faults in a victory requiring nearly 90 minutes.
Halep is bidding for a fourth WTA title this season after winning at Shenzhen, Dubai and Indian Wells.
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