Briton Andy Murray crushed Spaniard Fernando Verdasco 6-2 6-3 in the final of the St Petersburg Open on Sunday to win his second title of the year on his debut appearance in Russia's second city.

The second seed broke Verdasco twice in each set to claim a comfortable victory after one hour 18 minutes.

The Spanish sixth seed, who had not dropped a set in his four previous matches on his way to the final, made far too many unforced errors to put up a good fight.

Murray faced only one break point against him, in the fourth game of the second set, while converting both of his chances in the first set and going two for five in the second.

He earned the first break in the third game and repeated the trick in the fifth to take a one-set lead, then broke the Spaniard again at the start of the second.

The world number 16 held his nerve to maintain his advantage before breaking Verdasco once more in the final game to earn the third title of his career, after winning twice in San Jose.

"I played a pretty solid match, not too many mistakes," Murray said after boosting his chances of making the season-ending Tennis masters Cup in Shanghai.

"I came to the net at the right time and put a lot of pressure on his serve, so over all, it was a pretty comfortable match for me."

Verdasco, who was appearing in his first final in over two years, blamed his slow start on bad lighting at the St Petersburg indoor arena.

"I wasn't nervous and I didn't play too bad," the world number 30 told reporters.

"The problem was that not all the lights were on at the start of the match and by the time we had decent lighting I was already a break down," he said.

"It was difficult for me to get the serve back because he was serving very well and was gaining confidence as the match progressed while my confidence was getting low."

Several players are still fighting for the two remaining spots in the elite eight-man field for Shanghai, with Murray moving up to 11th spot, just three points behind eighth-placed German Tommy Haas.

"I think of all the guys, I have the least pressure of making it into Shanghai because I missed three months of the year (with a wrist injury), so I wasn't expecting to have a chance of qualifying," Murray said.

"So I'll just go into (this week's Paris Masters) hoping to perform as well as I did here and if I do that then I'll have a very good chance of making Shanghai."

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