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French Open: Aljaz Bedene beats Pablo Carreno Busta at Roland Garros

Aljaz Bedene of Great Britain
Image: Aljaz Bedene achieved a career best Grand Slam showing with his victory

British No 2 Aljaz Bedene moved into the third round of a Grand Slam for the first time with a five-set victory over Spain's Pablo Carreno Busta.

Bedene, ranked No 66 in the world, has never previously gone beyond the first round at Roland Garros while his best Grand Slam efforts were second round defeats at Wimbledon and the US Open last year.

However, the 26-year-old, who is originally from Slovenia, produced some sparkling tennis to take a two-set lead early on and then recover from a Carreno Busta revival to claim his place in the last 32 with a 7-6 (7-4) 6-3 4-6 5-7 6-2 win, firing down 23 aces in the process.

Having seen off the world No 129 Gerald Melzer in four sets in the opening round, Bedene was up against a man ranked 23 places above him in the shape of Carreno Busta and he now faces world number one Novak Djokovic after the Serb's straight sets win over Steve Darcis.

Bedene looked on course for a routine victory after claiming the opening two sets but Carreno Busta hit back with an early break that was enough to clinch the third set. And the Spaniard rammed home the momentum shift by breaking again in the opening game of the fourth.

Bedene broke back in the sixth game of the set before the two men traded further breaks. Carreno Busta then made a crucial breakthrough in the 11th game, which gave him a 6-5 lead.

Pablo Carreno Busta
Image: Pablo Carreno Busta fought back from two sets down

Bedene wasted chances to break back immediately and his opponent was able to close out the set to take the match into a fifth set, with Carreno Busta taking a medical time out before the decider.

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With the Spaniard's game dropping Bedene seized his moment impressively and took his two break points to clinch the crucial set and an impressive win.

Other early winners on Thursday included seventh seed Tomas Berdych, who needed four sets to overcome Malek Jaziri, Ernests Gulbis, who knocked out 26th seed Joao Sousa of Portugal, and Pablo Cuevas, who beat France's Quentin Halys in straight sets.

Bruno Soares of Brazil and Jamie Murray
Image: Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares are the Australian Open champions

In the men's doubles Jamie Murray and his Brazilian partner Bruno Soares kept their winning Grand Slam run going with victory in the first round.

The Australian Open champions are the fourth seeds in Paris and defeated Russian pair Evgeny Donskoy and Andrey Kuznetsov 6-3 6-3.

Murray spent a brief spell as world No 1 this spring, the first British player ever to officially stand at the top of the rankings and he began his quest for another title in routine fashion by seeing off the Russian duo in straight sets.

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