• AEGON Championships

Murray stutters past Malisse

ATP Tour seedings

Andy Murray showed no signs of being bothered by his ankle injury but he was forced to dig deep to claim a 6-3 5-7 6-3 win over Xavier Malisse in the second round of the AEGON Championships at Queen's.

After a fine run in the French Open, Murray had to adapt to a new surface while nursing the injury he picked up at Roland Garros. He had the joint heavily strapped, but it did not seem to cause him any concern. Of more concern was his failure to secure a straight-sets win.

He cruised through the first set and never looked in any danger in the second, until a couple of forehand errors at 5-6 handed Malisse the set. The Scot upped his level in the face of danger and an early break in the final set enabled him to ease through to a meeting with Janko Tipsarevic.

Murray showed excellent patience from the back of the court in the first set, mixing slice and topspin on the backhand wing, and the approach secured an early break as errors flew from the Malisse racket.

Malisse got on the board to trail 3-1 in the first set, at which point the players were taken off for rain. Following a delay of an hour, Malisse made a brisk run and earned break points. Murray produced some excellent defence and staved off the threat, before holding serve in the ninth game to close out the set.

Murray has a penchant for the drop shot and used it to good effect against Malisse. There was also some exhibition play from the Scot during the second set, with lob volleys followed by stop volleys tormenting Malisse.

Malisse stepped up his play in the second set with some fine serve-volley tactics and he made Murray shift out of second gear.

Murray came under threat at 3-4 in the second set, but a hat-trick of aces saw him recover. Murray upped the ante at 5-5 but Malisse staved off break points and the Belgian took heart to force a final set. In truth, though, he was handed the second set as Murray crashed a simple forehand into the top of the net and threw another forehand long at set-point.

The No. 2 seed regrouped at the start of the final set and worked a break in the third game as Malisse sent a backhand over the baseline.

Malisse had more chances but squandered break points in the sixth game and this allowed Murray to ease through.

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