Murray eases into China Open quarters

World number 11 Murray set the tone for the match early on by grabbing a vital break. Cuevas was made to work hard and, to his credit, was energetic on court, but his one-dimensional game never troubled Murray who raced through the opening stanza, allowing his opponent just two games.

The stubborn Uruguayan refused to changed it up during the second set, despite his initial game plan obviously not having any effect, and endured the same fate as he claimed just two more games.

Murray will now face either Marin Cilic or Joao Sousa in the next round.

Rafa Nadal also enjoyed straightforward progress in the Chinese event, beating qualifier Peter Gojowczyk 6-3 6-4 to earn a match-up against Martin Klizan.

The Spaniard, winner of the event in 2005, is playing his first tournament in 13 weeks and admitted that he was not yet at his best.

"In general I need to improve. It's obvious," he said.

"My serve worked well today. But in general I need more rhythm on the legs, more rhythm on the shots. I am playing okay, trying to not miss a lot, trying to play with not too many risks.

"That's what I did today. It's the only way to have matches, only way to have rhythm. Coming back in this part of the season is completely different than if I am coming back on clay. I would be able to be in rhythm a little bit faster, a little bit easier...

"The positive thing is that for another year I'm going to finish in a high position in the ranking, winning a Grand Slam again. I'm going to enjoy the remaining few tournaments. For me this last part of the season obviously is important. Every tournament is important for me."

Slovak Klizan was leading 6-2 3-0 when seventh seed Ernests Gulbis retired due to a shoulder injury.

Third seed Tomas Berdych moved up a place to seventh in the race to the season-ending ATP World Tour Finals in London after his 6-3 6-4 victory against wildcard Viktor Troicki despite a poor serving display.

The Czech only managed to make 32 per cent of his first serves and now meets eighth seed and big server John Isner in the quarter-finals.

Elsewhere on Beijing's blue hard courts, Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov beat Spaniard Pablo Andujar 6-4 6-4 to set up a quarter-final clash with world number one Novak Djokovic.