London: Andy Murray suddenly found himself a 2-1 bookies favourite for a breakthrough Wimbledon Championships title next week after crushing Ernests Gulbis 6-2, 7-5, 6-3 to storm into the third round Thursday.

The third-seeded Scot was joined as a runaway winner by veteran campaigner Lleyton Hewitt as the Australian rekindled memories of his title on the lawns seven years ago through a knockout of fifth seed Juan Del Potro 6-3, 7-5, 7-5.

Murray managed in just under 90 minutes with just five unforced errors as he blew away Latvia's best in Gulbis, who had sparked the flames by saying the Scot employed gamesmanship in a previous meeting in 2008.

Murray let his racket give the answer in the rout. "After he had chances in the first couple of games and I saved them I really relaxed. I didn't give him many opportunities and served very well.

"I made more returns and felt a lifted my level from the first round."

Also going through were sixth seed Andy Roddick, a 6-4, 6-2, 3-6, 6-2 winner over Igor Kunitsyn, and French eighth seed Gilles Simon, who beat Thiago Alves 5-7, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.

Russian 12th seed Nikolay Davydenko and number 16 David Ferrer, sneaked in under the radar to advance.

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