• Fourth seed Daniil Medvedev came through a testing first-round match against American Frances Tiafoe, winning 6-3 4-6 6-4 6-2 in two hours and 36 minutes.
• Meanwhile, former champion Maria Sharapova made her earliest Australian Open exit in a decade yesterday and said she was unsure whether her troublesome shoulder injury would allow her to return next year.
Image: /REUTERS
World number one Rafael Nadal cruised into the Australian Open second round with a straightforward victory over Bolivia’s Hugo Dellien in Melbourne.
Nadal, champion in Melbourne in 2009, dropped just five games in a 6-2 6-3 6-0 win over his 72nd-ranked opponent.
The Spaniard, runner-up last year, is bidding to equal Roger Federer’s record of 20 Grand Slam men’s singles titles.
He will play either Federico Delbonis of Argentina or Portugal’s Joao Sousa next. Nadal has reached the Australian Open final five times but won it only once, beating Federer in a five-set epic 11 years ago.
He dropped serve twice against Dellien but barely looked troubled, hitting 38 winners to his opponent’s 15.
“For me personally it has been a very positive start,” the 33-year-old said. “What you want is to win in the first round and, if you can do it in straight sets, even better.”
Fourth seed Daniil Medvedev came through a testing first-round match against American Frances Tiafoe, winning 6-3 4-6 6-4 6-2 in two hours and 36 minutes.
Russian Medvedev, beaten in five sets by Nadal in last year’s US Open final, said: “Many moments in the match, I felt like I had got the momentum and straight away he was coming back. For the first round, it’s a big win and I’m really happy.”
Fabio Fognini smashed his racquet during the match and also confronted the umpire
Italian 12th seed Fabio Fognini fought back from a two-set deficit to beat American Reilly Opelka in a bad-tempered match.
Opelka, who had earlier been given a code violation for time-wasting, shouted at the umpire when he felt Fognini should have been penalised for the same thing.
Fognini had earlier sworn at the umpire in Italian and broken a racquet.
After Fognini threw his racquet, Opelka approached Carlos Bernardes and said: “Let me ask you something, real quick. You’re pathetic.
“You give me one warning after one throw. He’s thrown his three or four times, bro.”
Opelka had led Fognini overnight after rain delayed their match, but was ultimately beaten 3-6 6-7 (3-7) 6-4 6-3 7-6 (7-5).
“You don’t want to engage with a guy like that,” Opelka said of Fognini after the match. “You want to keep him out of the match as much as possible. It’s definitely not a positive thing.”
Reilly Opelka swore at umpire Carlos Bernardes during his first-round loss to Fabio Fognini
There were also wins on Tuesday for Austrian fifth seed Dominic Thiem, Spain’s ninth seed Roberto Bautista Agut and Argentine 14th seed Diego Schwartzman.
Stan Wawrinka, who won the title in 2014, progressed in four sets, while former finalist Marin Cilic and 2016 semi-finalist Milos Raonic won in straight sets.
However, promising 20th seed Felix Auger-Aliassime was beaten by veteran Latvian qualifier Ernests Gulbis.
The 19-year-old Canadian lost 7-5 4-6 7-6 (7-4) 6-4 to the former world number 10, who has fallen to 256 in the rankings after struggles with his form.
Russian 14th seed Karen Khachanov fought back from a first-set deficit to advance, while Russia’s Andrey Rublev, who has won two titles this year, also won.
There was disappointment for former world number five Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who had to retire from his match against 20-year-old Australian Alexei Popyrin with a back injury.
“It is a painful one — he was my hero as a kid,” Popyrin said of 34-year-old Tsonga. “When he made the final here [in 2008] I was in my living room jumping around like a crazy kid.”
Meanwhile, former champion Maria Sharapova made her earliest Australian Open exit in a decade yesterday and said she was unsure whether her troublesome shoulder injury would allow her to return next year.
In the main draw on a wild card with a world ranking of 145, the 32-year-old Russian put up a dogged mid-match fight on Rod Laver Arena before crumpling to a 6-3 6-4 defeat at the hands of Donna Vekic.
It was only Sharapova’s second competitive outing since last September’s U.S. Open, where she fell at the first hurdle to Serena Williams. Five-times Grand Slam champion Sharapova cut a forlorn figure in the post-match press conference as she was questioned about her injury problems.
“I’m not the only one,” she said. “You know, I can speak about my struggles and the things that I’ve gone through with my shoulder, but it’s not really in my character to.”
“So, I was there. I put myself out there. As tough as it was, I finished the match and, yeah, it wasn’t the way that I wanted.”
Asked directly whether her 15th visit to Melbourne Park might be her last, Sharapova said there were no guarantees.
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” she said. “I was fortunate to get myself to be here and thanks to (the organisers for) allowing me to be part of this event. It’s tough for me to tell what’s going to happen in 12 months’ time.”