Andy Murray was far from his best today but still booked his first quarter-final on clay by beating Fabio Fognini in their rain-affected third-round clash at the Monte Carlo Masters.

Murray lacked sharpness but, as with yesterday, his Italian counterpart could not capitalise and the Briton added a 6-4 second-set win to his earlier 7-6 tie-break victory.

The world No4 initially looked like he would have to contest a third set as he started proceedings sluggishly.

Fognini closed out his first service game to level the scores at 1‑1 in the second set, then broke an error‑prone Murray to take the lead. He held his next serve to take control at 3-1 up but from then on Murray found his feet on a surface he has yet to fully get to grips with.

The Scot almost missed the chance to open his account today, making an unforced mistake from the baseline on game point, but he accepted his next chance to take the score to 3-2.

By now Fognini's discipline was wavering and Murray scented the chance to get an early finish as he broke his opponent's serve to love in the next game before holding his own in some style to take the lead.

Fognini was back in the game at 4-4 but Murray won the next two and converted the second of three match points to seal the win.

The delays yesterday due to the heavy weather mean that Murray is back on court later today
when he will face Nikolay Davydenko.

While Murray was on court for just 50 minutes, the No8 seed from Russia was taken to three sets by David Nalbandian, the No8 seed from Argentina, before triumphing 6-4, 5-7, 6-3.

Meanwhile, Carl Maes has resigned as the Lawn Tennis Association's head of women's tennis for “personal and family reasons” and will return to Belgium.

Maes said: “I am very proud of the progress made in women's tennis during my time at the LTA.”