Andy Murray admits first serve not up to scratch as he swats aside Anderson

ANDY Murray breezed through his first-round match with qualifier Kevin Anderson on a wet and windy opening day at the Australian Open, and was given more trouble by his own first serve than he was by his 6ft 8in opponent.

Murray swept aside the South African 6-1, 6-1, 6-2 in a match which was played under the Rod Laver Arena roof because of the conditions outside, which resulted in more than 20 matches across the men's and women's singles draws being cancelled for the day. The Scot got off to a flying start against Anderson, whose serve had not been broken once during qualifying, and was not overly concerned by managing to get just 35 per cent of his first serves in.

"I'd like to have served a bit better," Murray said. "But I feel good. I got here ten days earlier than I've done in the last three years. I feel good and I think that match proved it."

In recent months Murray has experienced the odd match in which he has served poorly – at November's ATP Finals in London, for instance, he described his serve as "pants" after one contest. He said then that such days simply happen from time to time, and he will hope that another does not recur for the rest of this fortnight.

That problem, however, was just about the only downside of the match, and was, arguably, less important than the fact that the fifth seed made it through to the second round while many others had their ties postponed. Play was halted on four separate occasions on the outside courts and Murray admitted he was happy to avoid such delays and book his place in the second round.

"It's good to get the match out of the way today because it's a long day for a lot of the players because of the weather outside," he said, going on to admit he had expected more of a fight from South Africa's top-ranked player. "Obviously it's good to get finished quickly.

"It is a good start. He's a tough player. He's beaten (Novak) Djokovic before in Miami and he's won a tour event.

"He's 6ft 8in so I wasn't expecting it to be easy. I just got off to a good start which helped. I broke him straightaway which always makes a big difference."

Murray was quickly out of the blocks as he raced into a 5-0 lead before taking the first set in 29 minutes to set the pattern for the remainder of the match.

The 22-year-old never gave his opponent a chance from there as he broke six of Anderson's first eight service games to drain any pre-match optimism he may have retained after coming through qualifying, where he was not broken once, to reach the main draw.

He added: "He didn't get broken in the whole of qualifying. It was a tough first round for me."

After racing through the opening set, Murray again immediately broke in the second set when Anderson miscued a simple volley wide. The 23-year-old South African had his chance to break back, but squandered three break-point opportunities.

Murray extricated himself from the danger with consecutive backhand cross-court winners as Anderson advanced to the net, before serving it out with an ace. The match already looked within Murray's keeping and he looked to get to the net more often and take control against his lumbering opponent. The tactic worked as he broke three more times in the set to clinch it 6-1, with the pressure showing on Anderson who double-faulted to go two sets down.

With the South African now resigned to his fate both players ambled through the final set before Murray clinched the match with his seventh break. Murray will next play the winner of the match between Marc Gicquel and Simon Bolelli, which was postponed due to the adverse weather.