Murray battles to Malisse victory

  Murray took his time before finding his edge and putting Malisse away Andy Murray battled into the third round of the Rome Masters with a seesaw victory over Belgium's Xavier Malisse.

Three breaks of serve to one helped the fourth seed take the first set 6-2.

But world number 41 Malisse reversed things in the second set, taking it by the same scoreline.

Murray broke early in the final set and although Malisse soon broke back, the Scot immediately secured the vital break and went on to finish the match with an ace as he took the set 6-3.

Murray will play the winner of the match between Viktor Troicki and Potito Starace for a place in the quarter-finals.

Still stunned by last week's shock loss to Brazilian Thomasz Bellucci in Madrid, the Scot never quite found his rhythm - and his familar problems at dealing with his own frustrations surfaced as he lurched in and out of form.

With the French Open fast approaching on 22 May, Murray overdid the drop shots while his first-serve percentages were way too low until the final stages.

He said afterwards: "It was a tough match. I concentrated badly throughout and I've got to get better at it. When I settled down and focused I played some nice stuff but there were too many loose games.

"On this surface you need to be patient and work harder for every point. It's good to get through but it was too up and down. I just need to get the matches now. I need to get better - the main thing for me is the concentration."

Maria Sharapova won her second-round match in less than an hour

The world number four was at his most erratic in the second set, which began with an ill-tempered loss of serve, unleashing Malisse to play some of the best tennis of the match.

Malisse attacked at will to force a decider but Murray recovered his concentration and energy levels to break his opponent twice in the decider, and even though he remained far from decisive in some keenly-contested games - needing six game points before going 5-2 up - the match was his.

In the other floodlit match, fifth seed Robin Soderling beat Fernando Verdasco 2-6 7-5 6-4, but only after the Spaniard had squandered three break-points, two through double-faults.

Other second round winners were seventh seed Tomas Berdych, Richard Gasquet (16) and Jarkko Nieminen of Finland.

The two seeds involved in first-round matches were Stanislas Wawrinka (14) and Nicolas Almagro (9), and they duly got through their contests.

In the women's event, seventh seed Maria Sharapova needed just 54 minutes to blaze into the third round with a thumping 6-1 6-1 win over fellow Russian Ekaterina Makarova.

Second seed and reigning French Open champion Francesca Schiavone took a little longer to dispatch American qualifier Christina McHale 6-3 6-1.

First round winners included 12th seed Andrea Petkovic, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (16) and Shahar Peer (10).