Seventh seed Nick Kyrgios made a winning return to action as he advanced to the second round of the Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur on Monday.

The seventh-seeded Australian, who was playing his first match since a first-round exit against Andy Murray at the US Open, advanced when Santiago Giraldo retired ill from their match. Kyrgios had been leading 6-1, 2-1.

“I think it was a really good performance,” said Kyrgios. “I haven’t played a lot of matches in the past couple of weeks. I’ve been doing a lot of hard work back home and I feel as if it showed today. It’s my first ever win in Kuala Lumpur, so it’s really special.”

Kyrgios, whose mother, Norlaila, is Malaysian, claimed his 19^th win of the season. The 20 year old reached the quarter-finals of the Australian Open at the start of the year (l. to Murray) and reached his first ATP World Tour final in Estoril (l. to Gasquet).

Last year’s quarter-finalist Benjamin Becker defeated Sam Groth 6-1, 7-6(6). The 34-year-old German withstood 17 aces to break Groth twice in the 74-minute contest. Becker goes on to face sixth seed Jeremy Chardy or Alexander Zverev.

“It’s always really tough to play Sam; he has such a big serve,” said Becker. “It’s tough to play your game. It’s all about neutralising his serve. I did well in the first set. In the second he served much better. I just tried to hang in there, take care of my service games and wait for the chance. He had chances in the tie-break, but I played some good points in the end and that’s how I won.”

Japan’s Yuichi Sugita and Yasutaka Uchiyama, Germany’s Mischa Zverev and Poland’s Michal Przysiezny all advanced through the final round of qualifying.