Rafeal Nadal cruised to the second round of the Australian Open with straight-set victories over Bolivia’s Hugo Dellien in Melbourne.
The 2009 champion played out a 6-2 6-3 6-0 match for the win.
Nadal is chasing Roger Federer’s record of 20 grand slam titles.
He will play either Federico Delbonis of Argentina or Portugal’s Joao Sousa next.
Nadal has reached the Australian Open final 5 times but had only won it once beating Federer in a classic five-game final back in the early days of his career.
Dellien broke his serve twice but he still had a comfortable victory over the Bolivian.
“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 Medvede overcame a difficult test against American American Frances Tiafoe, winning 6-3 4-6 6-4 6-2 in two hours 36 minutes.
The Russian commenting on the match 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.”
Homegrown talent Nick Krygios who had promised 200 AUD to the bushfire relief fund for every ace hit in the tournament entertained a parked Melbourne Arena with his 6-2 7-6 (7-3) 7-6 (7-1) over Italy’s Lorenzo Sonego.
Former top seed John McEnroe told Krygios after the match that he would donate $1000 for every set he won for the rest of the tournament towards the bushfire relief fund.
“It’s been a pretty emotional couple of months for all of us. I wanted to come out here and put on a good performance for all of us,” Kyrgios said.
Kyrgios slipped during his match but told McEnroe it was nothing serious, adding: “I move like a giraffe sometimes. I’m pretty dramatic sometimes – but you know all about that.”
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