Roger Federer made remarkably short work of his first-round match at the Australian Open on Monday night, beating Nikoloz Basilashvili 6-2, 6-1, 6-2 in a a mere one hour and 12 minutes.
Federer was especially dominant on return. Basilashvili, a 23-year-old Georgian, won only 29 percent of the points in which he had to toss in a second serve. Federer’s stellar returning helped him break the underdog eight times.
“That was a good match,” said Federer, who is likely to get a much tougher test for Alexandr Dolgopolov during second-round action on Wednesday. “I’m really pleased how I was able to play. Definitely gives me a bit of a lift in confidence, you know, because this year I haven’t been able to play properly yet. I mean, I had some decent matches in Brisbane, but it was all under, you know, sort of a cloud knowing that I wasn’t 100 percent.
“But this was a match where I was able to focus, you know, on my game, on tactics, all that stuff. So it was nice to play that way.”
Federer-Basilashvili highlights:
Only two seeded players failed to join Federer in the second round in the top half of the draw. No. 22 Ivo Karlovic retired against Federico Delbonis and No. 17 Benoit Paire lost three consecutive tiebreakers to Noah Rubin. Karlovic had been in line for a fourth-round date with Novak Djokovic, who beat Hyeon Chung on Monday afternoon. With Karlovic gone, the door is now open for Gilles Simon. Paire could have eventually run into fellow Frenchmen Pierre-Hugues Herbert (second round) and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga ( third round).
Paire-Rubin highlights:
Djokovic-Chung highlights:
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mostly uneventful day on the men’s side
some entertaining stuff in the women’s draw, however
Fed looked sharp out there. Virus is gone thankfully lol. His backhand DTL looked good too.