Matthews had been joined in the move by two team-mates from Orica-BikeExchange, formerly Orica-GreenEdge, with fellow Australian Luke Durbridge and South Africa’s Daryl Impey working strongly for the stage win.

Initially a 15-man breakaway, the number was reduced to just seven riders inside the final 25 kilometres of the 197km stage, due to an acceleration by world champion Peter Sagan.

The Slovakian was joined by the Orica-BikeExchange trio, Norway’s Edvald Boasson Hagen, Belgium’s Greg Van Avermaet and the Netherlands’ Tom Dumoulin.

With the group holding an advantage of nearly four minutes in the closing kilometres, the winner was always likely to come from the move, with Sagan, Van Avermaet and Dumoulin all seeking their second stage win of the race.

However, due to having a numerical advantage at the finish Orica-BikeExchange were left celebrating as Impey successfully led out the sprint finish, with Matthews hitting the front to claim the maiden Tour de France stage win of his career.

The Australian crossed the finish in a time of 4hrs, 22min and 38sec ahead of Sagan, which reversed their positions from last year’s World Championship road race in Richmond.

“I was close to giving in at this race after I had two bad crashes two and one years ago, this time around, I've crashed three times already,” Matthews stated afterwards.

“I thought maybe this race is not for me but my wife came during the rest day and she kept me motivated.

“It was never the plan to go for a breakaway today, we wanted a bunch sprint finish but we're such a strong group of guys.

“Durbridge and Impey gave me everything to win today.

“I have no word to describe what they did for me, they did a special job.”

Defending champion and overall race leader Chris Froome rolled in with the rest of the peloton, who ended 9min and 39sec down.

The Briton remains 16 seconds ahead of his compatriot Adam Yates in the standings, with Ireland’s Dan Martin a further three seconds down.

Colombia’s Nairo Quintana and Spain’s Joaquim Rodriguez, who announced on the rest day that he will retire at the end of the season, are 23 and 37 seconds behind Froome respectively.

Sprinters will be in search of a stage victory tomorrow, with the peloton tackling a 162km flat stage from Carcassonne to Montpellier.

The opening stage of the Tour of Poland, another International Cycling Union (UCI) WorldTour race, saw Italy's Davide Martinelli sprint to victory at the end of a 135km course from Radzymin to Warszawa.

Martinelli finished ahead of Colombia's Fernando Gaviria and Australia's Caleb Ewan in a time of 3:01:10.