This content was published 8 years ago. It may refer to a past edition of the Internazionali d’Italia.

Trailing 2-3 and 15-40, Andy Murray was in some trouble in the roasting midday sun of Rome. But he quickly shut the door on Jeremy Chardy, holding serve and then breaking the Frenchman to earn his 10th straight win by a scoreline 64 63 to progress to round three.

Having played eight matches in ten days, Murray only decided to compete here at the last minute. But the in-form man on clay may now have to play five matches in five days if he is to add a hat-trick of clay court triumphs to the ones picked up in Munich and Madrid.

There were some signs of tiredness. This was far from Murray’s most fluent display but rare unforced errors and some fine hitting especially on the backhand side saw him to victory comfortably enough.

“The last few years have obviously been a struggle in clay with my back so I’ve not been able to practice and train in the same way,” he said. “Because my back’s been feeling better I was able to spend more time on the court and I have to give credit to my team for getting me healthy. They’ve made some pretty significant changes to my training and preparation.

“The thumb is OK, my legs were a bit tired at the beginning and then I started to feel better after the first few games. For me I felt like I played a good match. It was tough but I felt like a moved pretty well and did not give him much after that 3-2 game in the first set.

“Each day I will try and recover and rest, I will spend a lot of time with my physio. It’s quite different playing at midday as opposed to 7pm and 1am in Madrid. That’s a huge change to your body clock but I’m happy with the way I’m going about things.”

Other names to progress to the third round were Guillermo Garcia-Lopez who followed up his win against Marin Cilic with victory over qualifier Alexandr Dolgopolov 64 63 and American John Isner who beat Leonardo Mayer 76(6) 64.