Andy Murray beats David Nalbandian in Cincinnati

Murray broke Nalbandian's serve six times in a row

Andy Murray got back to winning ways despite an uneven display against David Nalbandian in the second round of the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati.

The British number one, given a bye in round one as the fourth seed, had lost his opening match in Montreal last week but responded with a 6-4 6-1 victory.

He faces Alex Bogomolov Jr next after the American upset Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

Rafael Nadal beat Julien Beneteau 6-4 7-5 in round two, and top seed Novak Djokovic beat Ryan Harrison 6-2 6-3.

Aside from the Davis Cup, Murray's last victory came in the quarter-finals of Wimbledon and he had played poorly in losing to Kevin Anderson in Montreal last week, so any sort of win over Nalbandian was to be welcomed by the Scot.

With nine breaks of serve in total it was hardly a clinical display from either man, Murray dropping serve in the opening game before Nalbandian made four double-faults and only narrowly held on to his own.

Murray failed to capitalise on eight break points before finally converting his ninth to get back on level terms, only to drop serve once again, and then recover immediately in a set of wildly fluctuating fortunes.

It was Murray who steadied himself the better of the two though, breaking once again on his way to clinching the first set and seemingly ending Nalbandian's resistance by moving 2-0 clear in the second.

The Argentine was not quite done, however, and stopped the rot by pegging Murray back to 2-1 but he just could not hold serve, blazing a forehand into the tramlines moments later as he was broken for a fifth successive time.

With the finish line now approaching, Murray began to really find his range on the return, firing a couple of blistering winners as he broke Nalbandian for a sixth time before serving out the victory.

"I felt tight early on today," said Murray, who lost to Bogomolov Jr in Miami in March. "Obviously I want to start playing my best tennis but the most important thing right now is to try and get as many matches as possible before the US Open.

"I didn't want to have another first-round loss. I stayed calmer towards the end of the first set when I started to move a little bit better but earlier on I was definitely tight and that is something I'm trying to work on and stay a little bit more composed.

"That also comes with playing more matches and hopefully I'll get a few more this week."

Murray will take on Bogomolov at 1600 BST on Thursday, hoping to improve on their last meeting which saw the world number 50 cause a major upset by defeating the Scot.

"I learned a lot about myself during that match just because it was a lot of pressure," said Bogomolov, who beat 15th seed Tsonga 6-3 6-4. "It was my home town. It was on the stadium where I grew up in Miami.

"Now it's a little bit different. It's a third round of a Masters Series instead of a second round but we're going to have the same game plan going in."