Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares made a winning start to their BNP Paribas Open campaign with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Philipp Petzschner and Dominic Thiem in just under one hour ten minutes.
Murray/Soares fight from a break behind to win the first set
Murray began the match by holding serve to love for a 1-0 start. Petzschner early on started to struggle with his serve and this resulted in the fourth seeds taking the game to a deciding point. But the wildcarded pair survived to get on the board at 1-1.
It was then their turn to take the game to a deciding point on the Soares serve. Petzschner and Thiem broke at the first time of asking before consolidating to get off to the perfect start at 1-3. The Brit once more eased his way through his service game, holding to love for 2-3.
The fourth seeds then started to get a grip on the match, taking control and bringing up triple break points in the next game by forcing errors. Two of the three breaks were saved but a Thiem forehand error allowed the two-time Grand Slam winners to break back before the Brazilian consolidated to edge he and Murray in front at 4-3.
With momentum on their side, the Brit-Brazilian picked up a fourth break point of the match following a double-fault from the 33-year-old German. The pair broke for the second time in two games and closed the et 6-3 with Petzschner firing a forehand into the net.
Fourth seeds book spot in the second round
The second set started in the same fashion as the first, with the opening server holding. This time, Thiem for a 1-0 lead. Murray followed suit to continue his perfect ways on serve to restore parity at 1-1. Petzschner and Soares also had no problems on serve as all four players held quite comfortably for the first time in the match with the score at 2-2.
But, the fourth seeds would up their levels in the fifth side by earning triple break points at love-40 thanks to an excellent running forehand from the 32-year-old Glaswegian. Thiem's attempted backhand went long of the line and Murray/Soares broke to love.
They followed this by consolidating for a 4-2 lead as they closed in on the second round. The German, for the first time in the match, had an easy service game, holding to love to stay just the break behind of the Brit-Brazilian duo at 4-3.
Soares and Thiem held their next serves and with the match nearing its climax, Murray had the chance to close out the match. A matchpoint was reached at 30-40 and without any doubt, the fourth seeds finished the point and clinched the set 6-4 and the match to progress easily.
