Barcelona Open: Andy Murray to face Bernard Tomic in second round

Andy Murray won 18 of his 21 matches during the European clay-court season last year

World number one Andy Murray will play Australian Bernard Tomic in the Barcelona Open on Wednesday.

The Briton, 29, accepted a late wild card for Barcelona after his third-round defeat by Spaniard Albert Ramos-Vinolas in Monte Carlo on Thursday.

It will give top seed Murray more match time on clay before the French Open, which begins on 28 May.

Dan Evans continued his unlikely run in Barcelona as he reached the third round with a 6-4 6-4 win over Mischa Zverev.

But British number two Kyle Edmund is out after losing 6-1 6-4 to Austria's Dominic Thiem.

Murray played his first professional match at the tournament in 2005, aged 17, where he lost to Czech Jan Hernych.

The Scot was based in Barcelona from the age of 15 and he visited the Barcelona academy, which has named one of its courts after him.

"I was here in Barcelona for two years and I loved it. I would say that they were two of the best years of my life," Murray told the ATP website.

"It was the first time that I was away from my family home and even though it was hard, it was the first time I'd tasted independence".

Murray won his first clay-court title in Munich in 2015 and beat Rafael Nadal the following week to win the Madrid Masters.

He won the Italian Open last year and reached the final of the French Open, where he lost to Novak Djokovic.