Andy Murray put his Australian Open heartache behind him as he crushed Nicolas Mahut 6-3, 6-2 on Wednesday to reach the second round in Rotterdam.
The world number four, beaten in the Melbourne final by Novak Djokovic, showed no rust as he hammered the 109th-ranked Mahut at the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament.
"It was a high-quality match," said Murray, the 2009 champion at the Ahoy Stadium. "In the second set he had a lot of chances.
"We played some long games with some very good points, it was a real contrast in styles, as he likes to come to the net whenever possible.
"It was a good match, a very high standard. The scoreline does not reflect how tough it was."
Murray moves into a second-round contest against Canadian Vasek Pospisil.
Fourth seed Stan Wawrinka was making his start later, facing Dutchman Jesse Huta Galung.
Murray was never in trouble against Mahut, 33, earning a break for 4-2 as Mahut lunged and missed on a volley.
The second set was one-way traffic for Murray, who went up a treble break for 5-0.
But Mahut suddenly found his range, forcing Murray to save two break points before the Scot's fourth double-fault handed the Frenchman a first game, to trail a set and 1-5.
Mahut pulled another game back to make it 2-5 before Murray ended the mini-resurgence moments later with an easy volley putaway to close out the match.
In other first-round results, Sergiy Stakhovsky beat Austrian Dominic Thiem 6-1, 6-3 while Italian Andreas Seppi, conqueror of Roger Federer in Melbourne, beat Holland's Robin Haase in a 6-7 (5/7), 6-3, 6-3.
Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez advanced past Denis Istomin 7-6 (7/5), 6-4.
Source: AFP