ANDY MURRAY overcame a slow start to beat Austrian Jurgen Melzer 3-6 6-3 6-3 at the ATP Tour; the British number one reached the third round at the Indian Wells Masters.

The 11th seeded Scot will next face 20th seeded Croatian Ivo Karlovic, who beat South African qualifier Rik de Voest 6-3 7-6. Melzer rushed ahead 4-0 with some fine play from the baseline at first, while Murray looked sluggish in his first match in nearly two weeks.

According to Murray, he hadn’t expected the Austrian to come out and start smoking the returns like he did. He added that he was hitting clean winners and getting behind his second serves. Despite this the 20-year-old recovered his nerve to break back immediately in the fifth and nearly break again in the seventh before Melzer survived several break points due to a couple of lucky net calls and held to deuce. After Murray earned a love-service game, the Austrian closed out the opener with his own comfortable service hold.

The second set, however, saw Murray starting with another love-service game and a break of serve as Melzer started to pepper the court with unforced errors. Then a series of errors from Murray resulted in Melzer taking a break back in the fifth. But the world number 11 turned things around immediately to reclaim his break advantage and a 4-2 lead.

Murray easily served out to send the match to a decisive third set, and then continued to dominate breaking the world number 85 Melzer in the third game to take a 2-1 lead. The Scot continued to press his rival’s serve, forcing Melzer to save further break points in the seventh, before earning a pair of match points on the Austrian’s serve in the ninth.

Murray then wrapped up the win in style, sending a gorgeous backhand return of serve across court and right on the line for the winner and his place opposite Karlovic in the third round.