Murray Lurches To First Victory In Brisbane

ANDY MURRAY OF BRITAIN HITS A RETURN TO MIKHAIL KUKUSHKIN OF KAZAKHSTAN DURING THEIR MATCH AT THE BRISBANE INTERNATIONAL TENNIS TOURNAMENT, AUSTRALIA. JANUARY 3, 2012.

World number four Andy Murray's build-up in his quest for a first grand-slam title had an uneasy start when he laboured to a 5-7 6-3 6-2 victory over the unheralded Mikhail Kukushkin in the Brisbane International first round on Tuesday.

The 24-year-old Briton, who has recently recruited eight-times grand-slam winner Ivan Lendl as his coach in a bid to end his own grand-slam drought, had a poor start when the Kazak went out to a 3-0 lead in the first set.

Kukushkin, ranked 91st in the world, then suffered stage fright on the main Pat Rafter Arena court and allowed the Scot back into the match though he was able to recover enough to seal the first set in just over an hour.

The first-set loss seemed to kick Murray into gear and he romped out to a 4-1 lead in the second set and never looked back with the final two sets taking less time than the first.

Murray, preparing for the Australian Open in Melbourne later this month, served out to advance to the second round in just under two hours 10 minutes.

The women's second and third seeds, Andrea Petkovic and Francesca Schiavone, advanced to the quarter-finals with Petkovic particularly impressive as she battled with a back injury.

The 10th-ranked German took a little while to get going after her tough three-set victory against Shahar Peer on Monday, and played into Czech Barbora Zahlavova Strycova's strengths before she ran out a 7-6 6-0 winner.

"Hopefully I'm going to have a day off tomorrow and then I can get rid of the pain because it's bothering me on the serve. I cannot really get good pop," Petkovic said.

"Right now from the baseline I feel very good. My movement is fine and my serve was fine also until this happened, so we will see what happens."

Italian Schiavone beat Kazakhstan's Galina Voskoboeva 6-4 6-4.

REUTERS