Sport

NEW YORK (AP):

Britain's Andy Murray defeated Jamaica's Dustin Brown 7-5, 6-3, 6-0 yesterday to move into the third round of the US Open. The fourth-seeded Murray is seeking to make his second US Open final in three years. He won this year's US Open Series title, which means he could earn up to an extra $1 million in prize money if he wins the tournament.

Brown pushed him to 5-5 in the first set of the match, but Murray won 14 of the next 17 games. The entire match lasted one hour, 25 minutes and the third set went 18 minutes.

Kim Clijsters beat Petra Kvitova and Hurricane Earl with a quick victory before rain briefly suspended play. The forecast from the tournament's meteorologist yesterday called for intermittent showers and officials planned to try to get in the full schedule of matches. The rain delay lasted 25 minutes.

Clijsters, the defending champion, won the final 12 games in her 6-3, 6-0 third-round victory over the 27th-seeded Kvitova. The second-seeded Belgian dropped two service games to fall behind 3-0 early.

"A match like this today probably gives me more satisfaction, because I beat a good player without even playing my best tennis," Clijsters said.

American teenager Ryan Harrison played some of the best tennis of his young life, but he is still learning how to beat a good player. Harrison wasted three match points in a fifth-set tiebreaker to lose to Ukraine's Sergiy Stakhovsky in the men's second round.

Tiebreaker

The 18-year-old qualifier led 6-3 in the tiebreaker, but dropped the next five points. The 36th-ranked Stakhovsky escaped with a 6-3, 5-7, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (6) victory in four hours, 13 minutes.

"Obviously I'm not the happiest person in the world right now," Harrison said. "But looking back on it, it was a great experience. My ranking is 220 in the world right now and I'm trying to hopefully get to the top 10. So I feel like one match doesn't make or break that. It's the experience of playing these type of matches that is really going to help me to get there."

John Isner is still the highest-ranked American man left in the tournament after defeating Switzerland's Marco Chiudinelli 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (7), 6-4. The 18th-seeded Isner had 24 aces and his serves reached 144 mph.

Venus Williams and Rafael Nadal were due to play last night.