World number four Andy Murray suffered a major scare before finally beating a dogged Marcos Baghdatis to reach the second round of the Japan Open yesterday in Tokyo.

The 24-year-old Briton, fresh from victory at the Thailand Open last week, needed a tough two hours and 33 minutes to see off the big-serving Cypriot 7-6, 2-6, 6-4.

“That was very tough and long. I did a lot of running, especially in the first two sets,” said Murray, after only his second win over Baghdatis in five meetings.

He said it was difficult to adjust after organisers were forced to close the roof on centre court because of persistent rain.

“I think he played very well under the conditions. It took me a little bit longer,” said Murray.

Murray got off to a slow start, going down 0-2 in the first set before battling back to go a set ahead on the tie-break. He went down 0-4 in the second set and never recovered, as Baghdatis made it one set all.

The second-seeded Murray was again 1-3 down in the final set. But he managed to make it even at 3-3 with a break in the sixth game and went on to take a 5-4 lead as the two men held their serves.

Murray’s backhand went long on his first match point and, after repeating deuces five times, Murray had another match point when Baghdatis hit a double fault.

Murray clinched his ticket to the second round when Baghdatis, a finalist in Malaysia last week, hit a backhand out.