Tennis: Roger Federer made the perfect start to his Australian Open campaign today when he brushed aside little-known Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan 6-2 6-3 6-2.
Istomin caught the world number one napping in the opening game when he fired two aces past him but top seed Federer dominated the rest of the match once he found his rhythm.
"I won comfortably. That's what counts most," Federer told reporters at Melbourne Park. "I thought it was not easy today because he was serving big, taking a lot of chances on my return. So we didn't see too many rallies, which didn't really allow me to get the rhythm going."
There were no major surprises early on the second day of the grand slam although three seeds were eliminated and several top names struggled to get through.
Frenchman Richard Gasquet, the 14th seed, was knocked out by in-form German Tommy Haas 6-2 7-5 6-2, 22nd seed Gael Monfils, also of France, fell to Luis Horna of Peru 6-4 7-5 6-1 and 29th seed Italian Filippo Volandri retired after losing the first two sets against Australian wildcard Nathan Healey.
Russian fifth seed Nikolay Davydenko and Argentine sixth seed Guillermo Coria both survived tough five-set matches to stay alive while women's third seed Amelie Mauresmo came from a set down to beat China's Sun Tiantian 4-6 6-2 6-2.
Women's second seed Kim Clijsters shrugged off a break of serve in her first game to thrash South Korea's Cho Yoon-Jeong 6-3 6-0.
Clijsters, the US Open champion, did not appear to be suffering any ill effects from the hip muscle injury that forced her out of last week's Sydney International to win in 58 minutes.
The world number two actually committed more errors than her South Korean opponent - 28 to 24 - but it was her powerful groundstrokes that sealed the match for her.
Clijsters made 25 clear winners to Cho's six and will meet either Hungary's Melinda Czink or China's Meng Yuan in the second round.