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Ferrer cruises; easy for Gasquet
January 20, 2012
David Ferrer cruised through to the second round of the Australian Open with a comprehensive 6-1 6-4 6-2 win over Rui Machado.
Fifth seed Ferrer, a veteran of 37 consecutive grand slams and a former semi-finalist at Melbourne Park, was never troubled by his rival from Portugal.
Ferrer broke Machado seven times in total en route to a straight-sets win.
Fellow seeds Kei Nishikori and Alex Bogomolov Jnr also came through their opening-round games in three sets.
Japanese 24th seed Nishikori blew away Stephane Robert 6-1 7-6 (9-7) 6-0, while No.32 seed Bogomolov Jnr rattled off a 6-3 6-2 6-4 victory against Spain's Daniel Gimeno-Traver.
Richard Gasquet, the 17th seed from France, is also though to the second round after he saw off Andreas Seppi 6-3 3-6 6-3 6-1.
American Andy Roddick got his campaign off to a comfortable start, cruising past Dutchman Robin Hasse in straight sets 6-3 6-4 6-1.
Earlier in the day, world number one and defending champion Novak Djokovic laid down the gauntlet to the rest of his rivals with a 6-2 6-0 6-0 hiding of Paolo Lorenzi.
Andy Murray, playing his first Grand Slam since hiring Ivan Lendl as coach, got a scare against American teenager Ryan Harrison. Murray dropped the first set before prevailing 4-6 6-3 6-4 6-2 in a match punctuated by some excellent points from both players.
Gael Monfils, who is seeded to meet Murray in round four, beat Australian wild card Marinko Matosevic 7-6 (7/5) 6-3 6-3.
There were also wins for ninth seed Janko Tipsarevic, sixth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Milos Raonic, the 23rd seed tipped by many as an outsider for the title.
Tipsarevic was given a fright by Dmitry Tursunov before booking his place in the second round.
The Serb stormed up the rankings in 2011 to finish inside the world's top 10 but it didn't look that way early on. Tursunov, now 29 and heading towards the end of his career, took the first set and had chances to claim the second only to miss several set points.
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