ANDY MURRAY cruised into the third round of the Australian Open with a straight sets victory over Frenchman Vincent Millot on Rod Laver Arena.
The Scot, seeded No.4, took the opening two sets by 6-2, then showed all his battling qualities to battle back from 5-1 - winning 24 out of 25 points - down in the third to win 7-5.
His next opponent will be Spain's Feliciano Lopez.
The roof over Rod Laver Arena, which had been closed first for heat and then rain, opened as Murray and Millot warmed up.
It was humid and still very warm at 10pm local time, but nothing like the conditions that prompted the tournament to implement its extreme heat policy during the afternoon.
Millot, a qualifier ranked 267, was playing by far the biggest match of his career and he quickly looked out of his depth.
Murray broke in the opening game and then again to lead 3-0 despite not having hit a single winner.
Millot's play in the fourth game suggested he may have been affected by nerves to start with as he took advantage of two double faults from Murray to break serve.
The Scot looked less than impressed and went on the attack, breaking again with a precision backhand winner down the line.
Murray had a set point on the Millot serve but did not take it, and then saw three more go begging, one with his fourth double fault of the match.
A let court robbed him of an ace on his fifth chance but he dismissively placed the ball in the other corner moments later.
Murray, who had played very well in his first-round demolition of Go Soeda, did not appear to be enjoying the experience very much while Millot was growing into the match.
But there was a huge gulf in class between them and it was just a matter of when that told.
Millot was going for broke and it cost him in the third game of the second set, while Murray broke again to lead 4-1.
Millot, who once harboured hopes of following his father into professional football, held for 5-2 but then took a medical time-out to have his calf rubbed.
The 27-year-old played for more than three hours in beating Wayne Odesnik in the worst of the heat on Tuesday for his first grand slam victory.
After the stoppage, Murray came out to serve for the set, and he won the game to love to take it 6-2 before that dramatic final-set comeback.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article