Andy Murray beats Grigor Dimitrov to win China Open

Andy Murray claimed the 40th singles title of his career and fifth of the year by beating Grigor Dimitrov in straight sets in the final of the China Open in Beijing.

The world No 2 saw off an aggressive but inconsistent Dimitrov 6-4 7-6 (7-2) in one hour, 57 minutes.

Murray is hoping to replace Novak Djokovic as the world's No 1-ranked player and his victory in China closes his deficit to the Serb by 500 points to 4,195.

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Murray said: "It was a great week for me. Today's match was a very high-level match. Grigor fought right to the end and made it extremely tough to finish it in two sets.

"It's been an excellent week and I'm very happy with the way that I have played the last couple of matches. I will look forward to Shanghai now."

Murray's victory was built on his serve

Dimitrov gifted Murray a break of serve in the opening game of the match courtesy of two double faults but recovered well and began bombarding the Scot with heavy forehands from the baseline.

However, Murray comfortably saw out the first set thanks largely to success rates of 73 per cent on his first serve and 68 per cent on his second serve.

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It looked like he would cruise to victory when he broke Dimitrov for the second time to move 4-2 ahead in the second set, but the Bulgarian then caused a major shock by breaking to love as Murray was pegged back to 5-5.

Murray briefly looked rattled, but he took the set to a tie break and wrapped up the title by dominating it 7-2.

Dimitrov said: "I'm just glad that I fought so hard this tournament. It meant a lot to me. Andy is one of the toughest competitors out there - no doubt.

"On to Shanghai. I never had good results out here in China and I'm finally happy I did this time. Hopefully I __can continue like that for the rest of the year."

Murray's previous wins this season came at Wimbledon, the Olympic Games, Rome Masters and Aegon Championships.

He will now travel to the Shanghai Masters, which started on Sunday.

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