British number one Andy Murray overcame a slow start to beat Austrian Jurgen Melzer 3-6 6-3 6-3 and reach the third round at the Indian Wells Masters.

The 11th seeded Scot will next face 20th seeded Croatian Ivo Karlovic, who beat South African qualifier Rik de Voest 6-3 7-6.

In the first meeting between the two men Melzer rushed ahead 4-0 with some fine play from the baseline as Murray looked sluggish in his first match in nearly two weeks.

"I wasn't expecting him to come out and start smoking the returns like that. He was just hitting clean winners and getting behind my second serves," Murray said of the Austrian's solid start.

But the 20-year-old recovered his nerve to break back immediately in the fifth and nearly break again in the seventh before Melzer survived several break points due to a couple of lucky net cords and held to deuce.

After Murray earned a love-service game, the Austrian closed out the opener with his own comfortable service hold.

The wind clearly at his back, however, Murray started the second set with another love-service game and a break of serve as Melzer started to pepper the court with unforced errors.

Melzer took a break back in the fifth thanks to a series of errors from Murray, but the world number 11 turned things around immediately to reclaim his break advantage and a 4-2 lead.

Murray easily served out to send the match to a decisive third set, and then continued to dominate breaking the world number 85 Melzer in the third game to take a 2-1 lead.

The Scot continued to press his rival's serve, forcing Melzer to save further break points in the seventh, before earning a pair of match points on the Austrian's serve in the ninth.

Murray then wrapped up the win in style, sending a gorgeous backhand return of serve across court and right on the line for the winner and his place opposite Karlovic in the third round.

"That was what was most pleasing for me," Murray said of the come-from-behind effort.

"Even though he had the tactics working very well at the start, I managed to turn it around."

Murray has won his only previous meeting with his next opponent, Karlovic, in an impressive 6-7(3) 6-4 7-6(2) triumph at last year's San Jose final.

"I think pretty much every one of his matches is relatively 50-50 so it's one of those matches where I'm going to have to play very solid and take my chances when I get them," he said of the upcoming third round encounter.

"With conditions like this [windy] and balls flying like they do here, it's going to be very hard to break him."

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Jeremy Stahl / Eurosport