MELBOURNE, Feb 9: Facing a break point late in the third set, Rafael Nadal sprinted to his left and hit a running, around-the-post forehand that landed just inside the line.
Laslo Djere, ranked 56th, shrugged, his head dropped and he no doubt wondered what more he needed to do to win a point. He’d had three break points when Nadal was serving for the second set, and didn’t get close to cashing in one.
Nadal finished off a 6-3, 6-4,6-1 win in just under two hours in his first competitive match in months — he didn’t play for Spain at the ATP Cup last week because of the back stiffness.
He’ll next play American qualifier Michael Mmoh, who beat Viktor Troicki.
Fourth-seeded Daniil Medvedev extended his winning streak to 15 matches with a 6-2 6-2 6-4 win over Vasek Pospisil and seventh-seeded Andrey Rublev beat Yannick Hanfmann 6-3 6-3 6-4.
Sofia Kenin struggled with nerves in her first match as a defending champion at a Grand Slam tournament before beating 133rd-ranked wild-card entry Maddison Inglis 7-5 6-4.
Top-ranked Ash Barty dominated in her first Grand Slam match in more than a year, dropping only 10 points in a 6-0 6-0 rout of Danka Kovinic.
Barty lost to Kenin in the semifinals last year and then skipped the US Open and her title defense at the French Open because she stayed in Australia during the COVID pandemic.
After her 44-minute opener on Rod Laver Arena, Barty said she’d missed tennis “every single day” during her time away from the sport.
Garbiñe Muguruza, the Australian Open runner-up last year, defeated Margarita Gasparyan 6-4, 6-0.
Victoria Azarenka, a two-time Australian Open champion and the runner-up at last year’s US Open, appeared to have trouble breathing and received medical attention in the second set of a 7-5, 6-4 loss to Jessica Pegula of the United States.
Azarenka noted how difficult it was to prepare for a major tournament after being one of 72 players who were in a hard quarantine for two weeks — not allowed to leave their hotel rooms for any reason — after potentially being exposed to COVID on her flight to Australia.
In other results on a sunny Day 2 with the temperature in the low 70s Fahrenheit (low 20s Celsius), Australian wild-card entry Alexei Popyrin saved four match points to beat No. 13 David Goffin 3-6, 6-4, 6-7 (4), 7-6 (6), 6-3.
Young protégé
17-year-old Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz defeated Botic Van de Zandschulp 6-1, 6-4, 6-4, to become the youngest man to win a Grand Slam match since Thanasi Kokkinakis in 2014.
And an even younger player, 16-year-old Coco Gauff, won 6-3, 6-2 against Jil Teichmann to set up a second-round showdown against fifth-seeded Elina Svitolina.
Other seeded players advancing included No. 6 Karolina Pliskova, No. 21 Anett Kontaveit and No. 25 Karolina Muchova.
Mayar Sherif made history for Egyptian tennis, beating fellow qualifier Chloe Paquet 7-5, 7-5 to become the first woman from her country to win a Grand Slam match. (AP)
