Murray retains composure after being forced to battle by Russian

The No 3 seed overcame an abysmal start to see off the challenge of unheralded Russian Evgeny Donskoy in his opening match.

Playing for the first time since losing the Australian Open final to Novak Djokovic, the world No 3 found himself 5-1 down in the opening set against a player ranked 80 places below him.

Murray recovered some composure but still dropped the first set before clawing his way back to win 5-7 6-2 6-2.

“I hope I play better at each match. I haven’t played well here the last few years and I just need to get matches under my belt,” said Murray.

“I haven’t played a lot of matches so I didn’t take the points as soon as I would have liked, but I hit the ball well at the end of the match.

“I wasn’t so concerned with the whole of the first set or the start of the match. I went 5-1 down and after that I played pretty well. I had four or five break points at 5-5, didn’t quite get them and he came out with some big shots.

“And the game where I got broken at 6-5, I maybe played one bad point. But he did come up with some big shots and big forehand winners so I was happy with the way I played after that, I created a lot of chances.”

Murray’s third round opponent is Yen-Hsun Lu Taipei, who beat Martin Klizan 7-6 (7/5) 7-6 (7/5).

Djokovic was taken to three sets as Italian Fabio Fognini battled back.

Djokovic, champion in Indian Wells in 2008 and 2011, had looked on course for a comfortable win when his opponent failed to win a game in the opening set.

The Serb had won 10 of the first 11 games when Fognini fought back to win the second set before Djokovic wrapped up a 6-0 5-7 6-2 victory.

Argentina’s Juan Martin Del Potro won 6-3 6-4 against Russian Nikolay Davydenko and Nicolas Almagro won 7-5 6-1 over fellow Spaniard Daniel Gimeno-Traver.

Marin Cilic, seeded 12th here, reached the last 32 with a battling 7-6 (9-7) 6-2 win over Albert Ramos while another seed, Mardy Fish, was pushed hard to win 6-3 3-6 6-4 against Bobby Reynolds.

Two seeds fell, with Juan Monaco going down 7-5 6-0 to Marinko Matosevic and Jeremy Chardy succumbing 6-2 2-6 6-4 to Bjorn Phau.