Doha: Andy Murray of Great Britain began his Qatar Exxonmobil Open campaign with a straight set 6-0, 7-6 victory against France's Jeremy Chardy yesterday while France's Jo-Wilfried Tsonga advanced despite a determined fightback from Russia's Andrey Kuznetsov.
At the Khalifa International Tennis Complex, the world no.1 made light work of Chardy in the first set keeping him off the scoreboard all together to win 6-0 in just 21 minutes.
However, 29-year-old Chardy fought back in the second set, breaking Murray in the first game, only to be broken back promptly. Murray held his serve in the third game but Chardy broke back again in the sixth set to even the score once more.
A challenge during the tie-break went in Murray's favour to see the Brit take a 4-2 advantage and there was no going back as Murray fired an ace down the line to reach 6-2. Victory was eventually gifted to him by an unforced error by Chardy, moments later.
Earlier, France's Jo-Wilfried Tsonga won through to the second round, but only after seeing off a determined fightback from Russia's Andrey Kuznetsov. The world number 12 won 6-1, 4-6, 6-2 to set up a last 16, second round encounter with Germany's Dustin Brown.
Tsonga, who was playing his first match in Doha since taking the Qatar Open title in 2012, breezed through the opening set in just 23 minutes and looked on course for an easy victory.
But Kuznetsov, ranked 46 in the world, struck back in the second set, breaking Tsonga's serve in the tenth game to take the match into a deciding set, a seemingly unlikely scenario just 30 minutes earlier.
Tsonga though, who hit 28 winners, rallied in the final set and two breaks of the Russian's serve meant any chances of an upset were dashed.
Afterwards, the 31-year-old said his aim was to break back into the elite of the men's game.
"It's important for me to be in the top ten and be seeded for tournaments," said Tsonga.
