ROTTERDAM: Andy Murray rebounded nicely from his Australian Open disappointment as the Scot defeated Nicolas.Mahut 6-3, 6-2 on Wednesday to reach the second round of the ATP Rotterdam World Tennis event.

The world number four who lost the Grand Slam title bid 10 days ago to Novak Djokovic, showed no rust as he hammered the 109th-ranked Mahut to hand the Frenchman a 30th career defeat by a top 10 player.

Murray, the 2009 champion at the Ahoy Stadium, improved to 4-1 over Mahut, who beat him in a shock on grass at Queen’s club in a 2012 first round,

“It was a high-quality match,” said the winner, 7-1 on the season. “In the second set he had a lot of chances.

“We played some long games with some very good points, it was a real contrast in styles, as he likes to come to the net whenever possible.

“It was a good match, a very high standard. The scoreline does not reflect how tough it was.”

Murray moved into a second-round contest against Canadian Vasek Pospisil.

Fourth seed Stan Wawrinka was making his start later, facing Dutchman Jesse Huta Galung.

Muray was never in trouble against Mahut as the 33-year-old qualifier played the event for the fourth time, as the Scottish seed earned a break for 4-2 as Mahut lunged and missed on a volley in the first set.

Murray then ran out the set in 33 minutes, blasting down an ace on his first set point.

The second set was one-way traffic for Murray, who went up a treble break for 5-0.

But Mahut suddenly caught fire, forcing Murray to save two break points before the Scot’s fourth double-fault handed the Frenchman a first game, to trail a set and 1-5.

Mahut pulled another game back to make it 2-5 before Murray ended the uprising moments later with an easy volley putaway to close out the match.

In other first-round results, Sergiy Stakhovsky beat Austrian Dominic Thiem 6-1, 6-3 while Italian Andreas Seppi, conqueror of Roger Federer in Melbourne, beat Holland’s Robin Haase in a 6-7 (5/7), 6-3, 6-3 comeback effort.

Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez advanced past Denis Istomin 7-6 (7/5), 6-4.

Peng Shuai tumbles out in Pattaya

In Bangkok, China’s top ranked player Peng Shuai tumbled out of the Thailand Pattaya Open in a three set loss to Japan’s Misaki Doi, as two-time champion Vera Zvonareva advanced to the third round also at the expense of a Chinese player.

Top seeded Peng Shuai, a hot favorite in a weak Pattaya field after making it to the last 16 at the Australian Open, went down 3-6, 6-2, 2-6 to Doi, the world No. 104.

The unfancied left-hander stunned her Chinese rival by taking the first set 6-3. She stumbled in the second (2-6) but regained her composure in the third, relying on her first serve returns to see out the match with a final 6-2 set.

Zvonareva, who won back-to-back Pattaya titles in 2009 and 2010, moved into the third round with a hard fought 7-6, 6-3 win over eight seed Shuai Zhang of China.

The 30-year-old Russian is on something of a comeback trail, after injury and poor form saw her drop from a top-ten career high in 2010 to a current WTA ranking of 189th in the world.

Karlovic, Tomic advance

In Memphis, Croatian fifth seed Ivo Karlovic advanced to the second round of the ATP Memphis Open on Tuesday, blasting 23 aces to defeat Slovakian Lukas Lacko 7-6 (9/7), 6-3.

Karlovic, ranked 25th, had won their only prior meeting in the first round at Wimbledon in 2009. The big-serving 35-year-old will next face US qualifier Austin Krajicek, who outlasted Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Kukushkin 6-2, 6-7 (3/7), 7-6 (10/8).

Also booking a date in the round of 16 was Australian Bernard Tomic, who rallied to oust Dutchman Igor Sijsling 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.

Tomic, a 22-year-old German-born Aussie ranked 49th in the world, surrendered two service breaks in the opening set but saved 5-of-6 break points over the final two sets while breaking four times, three in the final set.

Tomic, who also won their first meeting last month at Sydney, advanced to a matchup with Ukranian fourth seed Alexandr Dolgopolov, who received a first-round bye along with Japanese top seed Kei Nishikori, South African second seed Kevin Anderson and US third seed John Isner.

US qualifier Ryan Harrison reached a second-round matchup with Nishikori by defeating Tunisia’s Malek Jaziri 7-6 (7/3), 7-6 (7/1).