Andy Murray won his first competitive match in five weeks as he began his clay-court season with a win over Gilles Muller at the Monte-Carlo Masters.

Despite showing some early rust world number one Murray, sidelined since mid-March with an elbow injury, eventually battled through 7-5 7-5.

Murray, who had won all five of their previous meetings, started slowly with Muller, a top-30 player for the first time aged 33, missing a chance to take the opening set at 5-3.

Andy Murray's projected route to Monte Carlo glory Show all 6 1 /6 Andy Murray's projected route to Monte Carlo glory Andy Murray's projected route to Monte Carlo glory Murray's projected route to the final Andy Murray is returning from injury at the Monte Carlo Masters, the only major ATP tournament where he has yet to make an appearance in the final. Who will he need to beat if he is to break that duck? AFP/Getty Andy Murray's projected route to Monte Carlo glory 2R: Gilles Müller Murray beat big-serving Müller in straight sets in the Second Round: 7-5, 7-5. AFP/Getty Andy Murray's projected route to Monte Carlo glory 3R: Albert Ramos Viñolas Ramos Viñolas is a clay-court specialist and reached the quarter-finals of last year's French Open, and is a potentially tricky opponent. He has never previously played Murray. Getty Andy Murray's projected route to Monte Carlo glory QF: Marin Čilić The World No 8 and former US Open champion is likely to beat Tomáš Berdych to set up a quarter-final against Murray. The Brit has won 12 of their previous 15 encounters. Getty Andy Murray's projected route to Monte Carlo glory SF: Stan Wawrinka The Swiss is maddeningly unreliable but has a kind route to the semi-finals. Has won as many Grand Slams as Murray (3) and the H2H record is close, tipped 10-7 in Murray's favour. AFP/Getty Andy Murray's projected route to Monte Carlo glory F: Rafael Nadal The greatest clay-court player the sport has ever seen. Will have to beat Novak Djokovic to reach the final, but Nadal has won this tournament nine times and has to be the favourite. AFP/Getty

But that only served to spark the Scot into life and two games later Murray completed the turnaround by winning the set when Muller missed a simple volley, smashing his racket in frustration.

After an exchange of breaks at the start of the second Murray missed several openings as he struggled to find any consistency.

But a bit of the old Murray magic brought up his first match point with a backhand dinked across the court and he took it when Muller blazed a forehand wide.

The top seed next faces Spanish 15th seed Albert Ramos-Vinolas.

"It was a tough first match, I started the match pretty slow, I obviously wasn't serving that well at the start,” Murray said afterwards.

"I haven't been in the best rhythm on serve because I only started serving at full speed four or five days ago. I knew it would take a bit of time but I wasn't expecting to start serving like that.

"It got a little bit better, I started to create a lot of chances in the second set. I couldn't get the breakthrough until right at the end."

Murray knocked off some rust with a solid win (Getty)

Ahead of Thursday's clash with Ramos-Vinolas, Murray said: "He's always a tough guy to play against. I've practised with him quite a bit, he obviously likes the clay.