Gael Monfils survived a real scare before beating Lucas Pouille in five sets at the Australian Open on Tuesday.

The 17th seed went two sets down against his French compatriot, only to stage a comeback and avoid becoming one of the biggest first-round scalps in Melbourne.

In a first set that went with serve throughout, Monfils was the only player to have break points and passed up both chances in game six as a tie-break was needed.

Wildcard Pouille held his nerve to win the breaker and took this momentum into the second, where an early break and several confident holds helped him go two sets up and to the cusp of a famous victory.

The world number 117 was well positioned to clinch the match at 4-4 in the third, but Monfils wore him down and, having squandered two break points earlier in the set, produced a forehand winner to pull within a set.

An epic opening game in the fourth, which went to deuce on seven occasions, went to server Monfils and that perhaps wounded Pouille's confidence as he surrendered serve twice to give Monfils parity in the match.

The unpredictable 28-year-old had experience in his favour against his rookie opponent, but Pouille broke for just the second time in the match as he reeled off three games in a row at the beginning of the decider.

However, Monfils had something left in his arsenal and won six out of the next seven games to eventually triumph 6(3)-7 3-6 6-4 6-1 6-4 in two hours and 50 minutes, setting up a second-round clash with Jerzy Janowicz.