Murray traded baseline blows with 95th-ranked Gulbis in the first set and the Latvian responded with wild misses and blistering winners and pushed the Scotsman to five set points before finally succumbing to a service break in the 12th game.

Murray, runner-up last year to Roger Federer in his first grand slam final, then varied his attack by mixing in forays to the net and took advantage of mounting mistakes from Gulbis, who had 51 unforced errors, 30 more than Murray.

Murray advanced to a second-round match against 87th-ranked Paul Capdeville of Chile.

(Reporting by Larry Fine, editing by Pritha Sarkar)