Saturday 27 / April / 2024
Melbourne: Rafa Nadal showed there was plenty of life in his battered body yet when he cast aside the disappointments of last year to reach the second round of the Australian Open with a 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 victory over Florian Mayer on Tuesday.
Easily avoiding the embarrassment of a back-to-back first round exits at Melbourne Park, the 30-year-old needed a single break in each set to proceed after a little over two hours in the brutal afternoon sun.
The Spaniard sealed the victory with a 39th winner, the 25th off his awesome forehand, and raised his arms to the skies to accept the salute of the crowd on the court where he won the title in 2009.
"It's never easy in the first round," Nadal said. "There are always a few more nerves at the beginning. The way that he plays is not conventional. It's not easy to read his game.
"So I'm just happy with the way that I played. I played well in all the key points. That's very important for me.
"For me it's a great victory."
Seeded ninth after a 2016 season which started with the five-set upset at the hands of Fernando Verdasco at Melbourne Park and was seriously disrupted then curtailed by a wrist injury, Nadal next faces Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis.
The 14-time Grand Slam champion was watched by fellow Mallorcan Carlos Moya, the former world No. 1 who Nadal has brought into his coaching team for this year.
"He's a great friend of mine, he was a very important person in my career in the early days," said Nadal.
"For me to have him on the bench helping with the rest of the team makes me happy. I'm excited about 2017."
Easy for Serena
Two matches in four months, a dodgy knee and a sweltering day had doubts swirling around Serena Williams as she took centre court for her first round match against talented Swiss Belinda Bencic.
It took 79 minutes for the 35-year-old American to bat them all away, however, an emphatic 6-4, 6-3 win at Rod Laver Arena providing a near-perfect launch of her bid to clinch a record 23rd Grand Slam title in the professional era.
Fiance Alexis Ohanian, a social media entrepreneur, was a spectator in the crowd but the wedding plans remain on hold for at least another match, and much longer if the American great has her way at Melbourne Park.
"I just kept saying that February I'll start looking at the bigger picture of my life," Williams, seeded second, told reporters. "But right now I'm just so focused that this is kind of all I can think about."
Former world No. 7 Bencic, who is expected to have a big future in the game, was supposed to give her opponent something to think about.
She had upset Williams in Toronto in 2015 and became the youngest player to do so in a completed match since a 17-year-old Maria Sharapova felled her at the 2004 WTA Finals.
Bencic trailed 3-1 within minutes of a match that started in oppressive heat on Tuesday but battled back to 4-4 in the first set before Williams changed the game with a single shot.
Pumping her creaky knees to lunge for a wide backhand, Williams' sliced an improbable cross-court winner past the net-bound Bencic to hold serve.
It was a deflating moment for the 19-year-old, who had been on a roll, and she duly dropped the set when Williams fired a return that all but punched a hole through her racket.
From there, Williams roared to 5-0 in the second set with only a late slump stalling her victory march.
Bencic rallied to break Williams a second time and the American double-faulted on her first match point, drawing gasps from the crowd.
But Williams made no mistake with her second, closing it out with a thumping forehand volley to set up a clash against Czech Lucie Safarova.
Safarova, a former world No. 5 and French Open finalist, might present a tough test in the second round but after the way she brushed Bencic aside few would bet against Williams ploughing on to the second week.
Tricky start for Konta
Britain's growing hopes of a first women's Grand Slam champion in 40 years moved a step closer on Tuesday when ninth seed Johanna Konta took out Kirsten Flipkins 7-5, 6-2 in the blazing sun.
Konta came through the tricky opening-round encounter in reasonable shape after an hour and a half, with two breaks in the opening set and another couple in the second helping to keep her time on court to a minimum.
Belgian Flipkens, who turned 31 last week, did not give her an easy ride, however, mixing it up with a smorgasbord of shots to give the 25-year-old a proper workout under the open roof on Margaret Court Arena.
"She made it difficult for me out there," Konta told reporters.
"She's got this great ability at really frustrating her opponents with some of the balls she's able to hit. She's very creative in that way, so I think I was really happy I was able to work myself into the match and to come through."
Australian-born Konta has had a fairytale last 12 months, soaring to world No. 9 after a surprise charge into the semifinals in Melbourne last year.
Last week, she won a warm-up tournament in Sydney to bag a trophy from the city of her birth, fuelling hopes that she could bring Britain to its women's glory since Virginia Wade's 1977 Wimbledon triumph.
Konta has attempted to downplay expectations but showed few signs of nerves as she brought up match point with an uncompromising smash at the net before sealing victory when Flipkens went long with a return.
The Briton was delighted to get out of the sun as quickly as possible, even if she had experienced worse conditions during a Sydney heat wave last week.
"It was hot, but last week in Sydney, we experienced something a lot hotter. So I think it was almost cool in comparison," Konta laughed.
She will next play Naomi Osaka, the 19-year-old Japanese ranked No. 48 in the world.
Meanwhile, Milos Raonic loped into the second round with a comfortable 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 victory over Germany's Dustin Brown .
Raonic, last year's Wimbledon finalist, faces either Gilles Muller of Luxembourg or Taylor Fritz of the United States in the next round.
