Andy Murray started pursuit for his first China Open title with easy first-round win against Italy's Andreas Seppi. The reigning Wimbledon champion defeated the Italian 6-2 7-5 to sail through second round.    

Murray had it easy in the opening set as he broke Seppi's serve twice, but had to fight from 2-0 down to win the second set. The world no. 2 Murray is aiming to close the gap with current world no. 1 Novak Djokovic, who has given this year's China Open a miss due to elbow injury.

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Djokovic has witnessed serious dip in the form in second half of the year, with questions being asked about how long the Serb can hang on to his no. 1 ranking.

"Trying to reach number one is a goal," Murray said ahead of the match against Seppi. "I've never been [top]. It's something I would like to do for the first time, which is maybe more of a motivation for me than some of the guys that have been there before."

In other results, the 14-time grand slam champion Rafael Nadal crushed Italy's Paolo Lorenzi 6-1, 6-1 in the first round, while this year's Wimbledon runner-up Milos Raonic is scheduled to take on Germany's Florian Mayer later in the day.

In the meantime, Dominic Thiem and Alexander Zverev, two of the rising tennis stars, will also take on each other later in the day. Zverev is fresh from his success at St. Petersburg Open, after he stunned the reigning US Open Champion Stan Wawrinka.     

Tagsandy murray, Andreas Seppi, china open 2016, China Open Andy Murray