ANDY MURRAY battled past the veteran Radek Stepanek in three sets to get his defence of the Madrid Open off to a winning start.
The world number two made hard work of beating the 37-year-old from the Czech Republic, dropping the second set before eventually sealing a 7-6 (7/3) 3-6 6-1 victory.
Three booming forehand winners gave Stepanek, ranked 148 in the world, a break of the Murray serve in the very first game.
But Murray shrugged off his sluggish start to break back in the sixth game.
The Scot fended off a break point at 5-5 and went on to take the first set in the tie-break.
Stepanek hit back with another early break to race into a 4-1 lead in the second, holding his nerve to eventually serve out for the set and take the match to a decider.
But Murray took his tiring opponent's serve in the second and fourth games before wrapping up an unconvincing victory in two hours and 16 minutes.
Meanwhile, the Aegon Championships has attracted its strongest ever field with 16 of the world's top 30 players due to compete at Queen's Club in June.
Murray, the defending champion, will face competition from four other top-10 players in Rafael Nadal, Stan Wawrinka, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Milos Raonic.
Other stand-out names include former grand slam champions Marin Cilic and Juan Martin Del Potro along with Richard Gasquet, John Isner, Nick Kyrgios, Bernard Tomic and Grigor Dimitrov.
The tournament, which runs from June 13-19, joins the China Open in Beijing in having the strongest field ever for an ATP 500 event.
Murray will hope that is not the only record set as he looks to become the first player to win five titles at the pre-Wimbledon tournament.
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