MUNICH: Top-seeded Andy Murray began his clay-court season with a routine 6-2, 6-2 victory over local qualifier Mischa Zverev to reach the BMW Open quarterfinals on Thursday.

Murray saved all of six break points he faced, including three in the final game while serving for the match. He broke serve for a 2-1 lead in the second set, and saved three break points in the next game before holding.

Zverev had little of the patience needed on clay, while Murray mixed his shots well. Murray took time off after his marriage, and practiced in Barcelona last week before arriving in Munich with the latest addition to his coaching staff, Jonas Bjorkman, a nine-time winner of Grand Slam doubles titles.

Murray, who has never won a title on clay, will next face Lukas Rosol. The Czech beat Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine for the first time, 7-5, 6-2.

Dominic Thiem of Austria upset eighth-seeded Fabio Fognini, last year’s Munich runner-up, 6-3, 6-0.

Pablo Andujar, last week’s runner-up in Barcelona, retired when he was down 4-1 against Gerald Melzer of Austria.

Seeds tumble

AGENCIES

In Estoril, Portugal, South Africa’s Kevin Anderson joined the exodus of Estoril Open seeds Thursday when he slumped to a 6-4, 3-6, 6-1 defeat to Spain’s Guillermo Garcia-Lopez on the back of nine double faults.

The exit of second-seeded Anderson left the rebranded claycourt event without its top four players even before the quarterfinal stage.

Top seed Feliciano Lopez lost 24 hours earlier, number three Tommy Robredo withdrew injured while fourth seed Leonardo Mayer was another early victim.

Fifth-seeded Frenchman Richard Gasquet, a finalist in 2007 and 2012, remains the highest seed still in contention along with number seven Nick Kyrgios and number eight Gilles Muller.

Anderson went down in just over two hours, losing serve three times but crushed mainly by his serving errors.

He contributed his last double-fault in the penultimate game on a break point to trail 5-1 before being put out of his misery a game later.

Anderson has reached the semifinals or better four times this year and now stands 33-31 on clay for his career.

The 31st-ranked Garcia-Lopez owns titles this season at Zagreb and won on clay in Bucharest last weekend. He now stands 18-8 in 2015 and 7-1 on clay.

He was one of four Spaniards playing on Thursday and will face the winner of a later match between the last of the Portuguese players, Rui Machado, and Croatian teenager Borna Coric.