Murray through in Melbourne after minor scare

Britain's number one Andy Murray went through as expected earlier today in Melbourne in the first round of the Australian Open Grand Slam tournament, but it was not as plain sailing as it had originally seemed for the number six seed. The 27-year-old Scot qualified for Wednesday's second round with a confident straight sets victory over the Indian qualifier Yuki Bhambri, 6-3 6-4 7-6 in a little over two hours, albeit with some rather nervous moments in the third set, which required a tie-break before it was decided in the Scot's favour.

The match was progressing pretty much as expected for two sets on the 7,500-capacity Margaret Court Arena, re-named in 2003 to honour the great Australian woman who has won more Grand Slams than any other player (male or female), as Murray took a two set lead and looked to be playing well. However, a match involving Murray is commonly never too straightforward and he had to endure a rather more fraught third set before coming through on the tie-break to clinch the match and his place in the next round. The Brit recovered from a break down at 4-1 against an opponent ranked more than 300 in the world (the lowest in the men's main draw), before forcing the tie-break which he always looked in control of and took 7-3.

Former world junior number one and Australian Open Junior champion, Bhambri will have been pleased with his display in his first ever senior Grand Slam match, if not the result. Murray seemed basically content with his performance, with a solid if unspectacular workout in his first match of the event.

Murray now moves on to face the Australian Marinko Matosevic in round two, who came from two sets to one behind against Russian Alexander Kudryavtsev, before finally clinching his place 6-4 6-7 4-6 7-5 6-3.They have played each other three times previously, with Murray the winner on each occasion without dropping a set. Their latest match was in the recent Hopman Cup rubber in Perth when Murray was the victor 6-3 6-2, so the Brit will be hoping for a repeat of that performance on Wednesday.