Kevin Anderson has withstood a strong performance from Diego Schwartzman to book his place in the second round of the Australian Open.

The first three sets took all of three hours as Schwartzman matched the 14th seed, but Anderson showed his experience in the fourth to come through by a 7-6 7-5 5-7 6-4 scoreline.

The opener was dominated with serve, but despite gifting Schwartzman a 5-3 advantage in the tie-break, Anderson was able to reel off four points in a row to edge into the lead.

Anderson was in the ascendancy, but after registering the first break of match, the Argentine struck back to level the score at 4-4 in the second set.

However, the South African seed struck again in the 11th game to secure a two-set advantage and he left Schwartzman on the brink of an early exit after breaking at the start of the third.

The world number 59 wasn't ready to bow out, though, and he stormed back to break on two occasions and take the match, which had already eclipsed three hours, into a fourth set.

Anderson needed to find a reply, and he found one to break his opponent's serve for the fifth time in the match before holding to 15 to set up a second-round encounter with Ricardas Berankis.