British number one Andy Murray has got his French Open campaign off to a winning start as he needed four sets to see off Kazakhstan’s Andrey Golubev 6-1 6-4 3-6, 6-3.
The Wimbledon champion reached the 2011 semi-finals on the Paris clay, his best result to date on his least favourite surface but he was given a stern workout by his world number 53 opponent.
A run to the Rome Masters quarter-finals where he was outlasted by Rafael Nadal losing 7-5 in the decider has given the Murray camp reason for optimism in his seventh appearance at the French.
He backed that up with a solid showing on the Suzanne Lenglen court, using a patient baseline game and winning just under 50 per cent of his opponents service to wrap up a place in the last 64.
Murray, 27, who remains without a coach after parting ways with Ivan Lendl, now meets either Australian Marinko Matosevic or Dustin Brown of Germany in the second round.