Andy Murray rebounded nicely from his Australian Open disappointment as the Scot defeated Nicolas.Mahut 6-3, 6-2 on Wednesday to reach the second round of the ATP Rotterdam World Tennis event.
The world number four who lost the Grand Slam title bid 10 days ago to Novak Djokovic, showed no rust as he hammered the 109th-ranked Mahut to hand the Frenchman a 30th career defeat by a top 10 player.
Murray, the 2009 champion at the Ahoy Stadium, improved to 4-1 over Mahut, who beat him in a shock on grass at Queen's club in a 2012 first round,
"It was a high-quality match," said the winner, 7-1 on the season. "In the second set he had a lot of chances.
"We played some long games with some very good points, it was a real contrast in styles, as he likes to come to the net whenever possible.
"It was a good match, a very high standard. The scoreline does not reflect how tough it was."
Murray moved into a second-round contest against Canadian Vasek Pospisil.
Fourth seed Stan Wawrinka was making his start later, facing Dutchman Jesse Huta Galung.
Muray was never in trouble against Mahut as the 33-year-old qualifier played the event for the fourth time, as the Scottish seed earned a break for 4-2 as Mahut lunged and missed on a volley in the first set.
Murray then ran out the set in 33 minutes, blasting down an ace on his first set point.
The second set was one-way traffic for Murray, who went up a treble break for 5-0.
But Mahut suddenly caught fire, forcing Murray to save two break points before the Scot's fourth double-fault handed the Frenchman a first game, to trail a set and 1-5.
Mahut pulled another game back to make it 2-5 before Murray ended the uprising moments later with an easy volley putaway to close out the match.
In other first-round results, Sergiy Stakhovsky beat Austrian Dominic Thiem 6-1, 6-3 while Italian Andreas Seppi, conqueror of Roger Federer in Melbourne, beat Holland's Robin Haase in a 6-7 (5/7), 6-3, 6-3 comeback effort.
Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez advanced past Denis Istomin 7-6 (7/5), 6-4.
Source: AFP
