Murray ends win drought in Monte Carlo

It is the British No 1’s first victory since defeating David Ferrer for a place in the Australian Open final back in January. He will now face 16th seed Gilles Simon in the third round.

The win brings an end to a barren spell for the world No 4 who had failed to pick up a single set of tennis since his heavy defeat to Novak Djokovic in the final in Melbourne.

Since then he has been knocked out of consecutive Masters Series tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami by players ranked outside the world’s top 100 and parted ways with coach Alex Corretja.

After the match Murray said that being unable to find a suitable coach to replace Corretja has affected his concentration.

“I made some changes to my coaching set-up which played on my mind for a few weeks, but I believe in myself, train hard and practice hard,” he said.

“People are going to criticise me all the time, it’s something I’ve got to deal with.”

Despite the off-court distractions, Murray showed signs of brilliance against Stepanek and said that the win was the perfect way to start the clay court season.

“I played very well, hit the ball deep and everything was good for the first match on clay,” he said.

Stepanek started well, holding his first service game to take an early lead in the match, but after that Murray dictated the play and took the next six games to wrap up the first set in just under 35 minutes.

His impressive start continued in to the second set and his groundstrokes from the baseline overpowered the Czech.

After both players held serve in the second set, Murray held again and then broke Stepanek’s serve to take command of match.

Stepanek set up three break points in the following game, but Murray saved each of them before closing out the game with a sublime forehand.

The Czech finally broke Murray for the first time en route to taking the sixth and seventh games of the set and went on to level the contest at 4-4.

Unlike recent matches in which Murray has faltered under pressure, he concentrated on the task in hand and on match point forced Stepanek to hit long.