PARIS, May 30, 2017

Roland Garros top seed Andy Murray openend his French Open title bid with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-2, 6-0 victory over Russian Andrey Kuznetsov on Tuesday afternoon.

The World No. 1 won 72 per cent of his first service points and broke serve nine times to seal victory in two hours and 32 minutes.

“I started to move a bit better towards the end. I was hitting the ball better when I was defending. That’s something the last few weeks I haven’t done so well and didn’t start off the match doing particularly well. But once I was getting a little bit more on my ball when I was defending, there wasn’t too many openings for him in the points. It was a decent start, considering obviously how I played in the build-up,” Murray told.

In November 2016, Murray made history becoming the 26th player to rise to World No. 1 of the Emirates ATP Rankings after lifting the trophy at the ATP Masters 1000 in Paris-Bercy.

“Last year was a great year for me, you know it was the best I ever played,” Murray said. “Here at the beginning of my career I struggled. But each year I kept coming back and was trying a little bit better and last year was really good,” Murray said.

“And last year during Bercy that’s when I reached No 1 for first time, so I’ve got very good memories from Paris last year, and I’ll try and have another good one year this year.”

The 30-year-old Scot, now three match wins away from 650 victories in his career, goes on to face Slovakian Martin Klizan in the second round.

There was more good news for the British players, as Kyle Edmund defeated Gastao Elias from Portugal 6-3, 6-2, 7-5 in one hour and 46 minutes to join Andy Murray and Aljaz Bedene in the second round of the French Open.

His next opponent could be French favourite Jo-Wilfried Tsonga

Gael Monfils secures his 400th tour victory with a 6-4, 7-5, 6-0 success against Dustin Brown of Germany. The encounter lasted one hour and 29 minutes.

“As I always said I come to Paris with one dream, one goal: to have this trophy at the end,” Monfils stated.

Bouchard Wins

Eugenie Bouchard makes the second round in the women’s draw. The Canadia comes through 2-6, 6-3, 6-2 against Risa Ozaki of Japan.

“I felt pretty nervous before the match, because I didn’t know what to expect with the ankle. And I felt like I was overplaying the first five games. But I realized what was going on, and I was able to change it,” Bouchard told.

The World No. 57 from Montreal struggled with an right ankle injury just before the French Open.

“I almost didn’t play. So for me I was just super happy to decide to play, and super happy with a win. We’ll take it day by day. And just when I’m on the court try not to think about it, try to go for it, but definitely not really have expectations. It feels okay now. It feels like it felt after the past few practices, even though obviously this was more intense and longer. We’ll see how it feels tomorrow.”