MELBOURNE: Grigor Dimitrov recovered from a rocky start to see off the challenge of Marton Fucsovics and reach the Australian Open second round on Tuesday.
The 13th-seeded Bulgarian, who ended a six-year title drought in Brisbane this month, won 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7/1), 6-2 on a sun-baked John Cain Arena.
The 32-year-old veteran said he had found it difficult to adjust to the punishing conditions but was confident he was in good physical shape.
“I knew my game wasn’t there but I could count on something else and that was my physicality today,” he said.
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Dimitrov, whose best result in Melbourne is a semi-final appearance, started the match in the worst possible way, losing the first eight points as he struggled to find any sort of rhythm.
Fucsovics broke again to take an iron grip on the set and he drew first blood, taking advantage of 19 unforced errors from the racquet of Dimitrov.
Dimitrov was staring at an embarrassingly early exit when he was broken early in the second set, but he hit back straight away and repeated the trick on his way to levelling the contest.
Neither player was able to force a break in a tight third set but Dimitrov seized control of the tie-break, romping home with the loss of just one point.
The former world number three was now unrecognisable from the player who started the match.
He broke his flagging Hungarian opponent twice in the fourth set and reduced his unforced-error tally to just six, taking the set 6-2 to seal victory.
Dimitrov will face either Sebastian Ofner or Thanasi Kokkinakis in the second round.
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