Andy Murray cruised past Marinko Matosevic to hand Great Britain a resounding Hopman Cup victory over Australia at Perth Arena on Friday night.

The last session of the round-robin competition had no bearing on the final but Australia would have been hoping for a better start than seeing Heather Watson beat Casey Dellacqua 6-3 6-4 in 101 minutes.

That left Matosevic with the massive job against world No.6 Murray as Australia’s fourth representative named for the tournament after Nick Kyrgios pulled out just days before it started and then with Matt Ebden injuring a calf and Ben Mitchell stepping in briefly.

Matosevic was competitive with the Brit for the first half of the opening set but had his serve broken in the eighth game and Murray served out the set 6-3.

He then cruised through the second, winning the opening four games before going on to secure the 6-3 6-2 victory in 69 minutes.

While Great Britain hasn’t qualified for Saturday’s final, Murray is pleased with his week in Perth with straight-sets singles wins over Poland’s Jerzy Janowicz, France’s Benoit Paire and now Matosevic.

“I think I have played well. The score lines have been quite convincing against good players and tricky players who are big hitters of the ball,” Murray said.

“Paire is quite an unpredictable guy to play against and then Janowicz and Matosevic are big and strong guys, but I felt like I neutralised a lot of their power well and moved forward, and stepped up the court well when I had the chance. It was a good few matches.”

Matosevic only came to Perth after losing his first-round match at the Brisbane International to American Steve Johnson, and pulled off a win over the more fancied Paire to make his time at the Hopman Cup well and truly worthwhile.

The final for Saturday was already set before the last tie with the USA team of Serena Williams and John Isner to play Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska and Janowicz.