Murray through despite hiccup

Andy Murray survived a monumental mid-match slump to beat Marcos Baghdatis on Friday and reach week two of the French Open for the second successive year.

World number four Murray was in the comfort zone after winning the opening two sets before completely losing the plot, gifting his opponent seven successive games and a route back into the match.

But after going a break down in the fourth set on a sunny Suzanne Lenglen Court, the 23-year-old finally woke up to win 6-2 6-3 0-6 6-2 in two hours and 33 minutes to set up a last-16 clash with Tomas Berdych after he beat John Isner 6-2 6-2 6-1.

Murray once again struggled early on and faced a break point and several deuces in his opening two service games. He held both and was gifted a break of his own in game five thanks to two bad errors from the Cypriot.

The Scot broke in the seventh game and served out the set to claim a fifth straight game.

Baghdatis dropped serve again in a marathon opening game of the second set, Murray finally breaking at the fifth time of asking when the Cypriot netted and although Baghdatis broke back in the second game, Murray went on to take a two-set lead when his opponent double-faulted for a sixth time.

But Murray endured an alarming slump at the start of the third, falling 0-40 down before netting to hand Baghdatis a break to 15. The Cypriot crashed himself from 30-0 up to 30-40 in the next before holding, but Murray was now really struggling on serve, Baghdatis all too easily securing a double-break and a 3-0 lead.

The 25th seed had upped the aggression and Murray was failing to respond, surrendering serve again for a 5-0 deficit. Having seemingly given up on the set, Murray allowed his opponent to serve it out and regrouped for the fourth.

If that was the plan, it immediately backfired as he was broken courtesy of a double-fault. Baghdatis showed some charity in the next to allow him to end his seven-game losing streak by breaking straight back.

Despite being taken to deuce, Murray then held for the first time in five service games and he went on to wrap up the game with a well executed drop shot..