Federer, Serena a little rusty, but move on
MELBOURNE, Australia — Roger Federer shanked a few shots and was unsettled by how nervous he felt after six months on the sideline, despite the familiar surroundings at the Australian Open.
No other man on tour knows the way around a Grand Slam tournament better than Federer, who is playing in his 69th major and has won a record 17.
He served 19 aces and had only one double-fault in a 7-5, 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 win against fellow 35-year-old Jurgen Melzer, but dropped serve three times and experienced frustrating moments.
“I was feeling nervous once the match actually started,” said Federer, who hadn’t played at tour level since Wimbledon after taking time off to let his injured left knee heal. “In the warmup ... I felt fine. Then I hit four frames in a row. It was like, ‘Whew, it’s not as easy as I thought it was going to be.’
“I struggled for a while to find that groove, that rhythm.”
Federer had surgery on the knee after a semifinal exit a year ago at the Australian Open and missed the French Open, ending his streak of 65 consecutive Grand Slam tournaments. He returned for Wimbledon, reached the semifinals, then didn’t play again in 2016. In November, he fell out of the top 10 for the first time in 734 weeks.
For the first five games in the second set, Serena Williams played almost flawless tennis in her first-round match.
Then came the rustiness that tends to follow a lengthy layoff, giving Belinda Bencic a glimmer of hope, before Williams regained her composure to win, 6-4, 6-3. Williams, a six-time Australian Open champion, improved her impressive record in the first round of Grand Slam tournaments to 65-1.
No. 2-ranked Williams’ priority here is an Open era record 23rd major title. She’s one win down — beating a player who was seeded 12th a year ago at this event year and reached a career-high No. 7 ranking — and is targeting six more at Melbourne Park.
“She was just recently in the top 10. I knew it would be one of the toughest firstround matches I’ve ever played,” the newly engaged Williams said.
Seventeenth-seeded Federer wasn’t the only highlyranked player to find the going tough.
Stan Wawrinka, the reigning U.S. Open champion, was pushed to five sets. So was No. 5-seeded Kei Nishikori. Angelique Kerber, defending champion and ranked No. 1 at a major for the first time, had some nervous moments in her 6-2, 5-7, 6-2 win over Lesia Tsurenko.
Kerber won her first Grand Slam title in Melbourne a year ago, beating Williams in the final after saving a match point in the first round.
After wasting a match point before her serve was broken as Tsurenko rallied to win the second set, Kerber said her mind raced back 12 months.
In his first Grand Slam match with the elevated status of having a knighthood and the No. 1 ranking, Andy Murray berated himself when he made mistakes and frequently yelled in a 7-5, 7-6 (5), 6-2 win over Illya Marchenko.
Wawrinka, who made his Grand Slam breakthrough in Australia in 2014, narrowly scraped past 35thranked Martin Klizan, 4-6, 64, 7-5, 4-6, 6-4. Noah Rubin of New York ousted Bjorn Fratangelo of Plum, 6-7 (4), 7-5, 36, 6-2, 6-2. The match lasted 3 hours, 8 minutes as Rubin earned a second-round matchup with Federer.
Seven-time major winner Venus Williams beat Kateryna Kozlova, 7-6 (5), 7-5.