Illness ends Niland's debut early

Tennis : Ireland’s Conor Niland was unable to complete his US Open debut match against world number one Novak Djokovic after…

Tennis: Ireland's Conor Niland was unable to complete his US Open debut match against world number one Novak Djokovic after succumbing to food poisoning. The Limerick man, who qualified last week, came into the game ill and had only won one of 12 games by the time he retired, trailing 6-0 5-1.

Niland spent a mere 44 minutes on court, having clearly struggle to muster any real challenge to the tournament favourite.

Djokovic raced through the first set in just 21 minutes. Niland won his first game of the match when he held serve in the eighth game, to make it 1-1, drawing cheers from the National Tennis Center crowd.

But after losing four more games, the Irishman could not continue.

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Djokovic will next play either Pere Riba of Spain or Carlos Berlocq of Argentina.

Wimbledon semi-finalist Jo-Wilfried Tsonga enjoyed smooth progress into the second round earlier.

The Frenchman, who famously came from two sets down to beat Roger Federer in SW19 earlier this summer, eased past Yen-Hsun Lu in New York, winning 6-4 6-4 6-4.

Tsonga used his big-hitting game to fend off his Taiwanese opponent, smashing 39 winners past him on Flushing Meadows' Grandstand court.

Having broken serve once in each of the opening two sets, Tsonga looked set to wrap up victory when he raced 4-0 ahead in the third.

However, Lu then produced his best tennis of the match to break Tsonga for the first time, but although he reduced the deficit to 4-3 another break proved beyond the world number 82.

Tsonga, who also beat Federer in Montreal recently, could meet the Swiss again in the quarter-finals of this tournament, although he may first have to get past in-form American Mardy Fish at the last-16 stage.

Fifth seed David Ferrer had more of a struggle. He needed to come from a set down to see off Igor Andreev in four. The Spaniard made an awful start on Louis Armstrong Stadium but losing the first set seemed to give him the kick he needed.

Ferrer, a semi-finalist in New York in 2007, turned things around to win 2-6 6-3 6-0 6-4.

Stanislas Wawrinka, seeded 14, also came from a set down to beat Maximo Gonzalez in four sets. There was an upset though when last year's US Open semi-finalist Mikhail Youzhny was beaten by Ernests Gulbis in this year's first round.

The enigmatic 23-year-old won 6-2 6-4 6-4 but the match was closer than the scoreline suggested.

Youzhny had a total of 10 break points - five in the first set and five in the second - but could not take any of his chances. By contrast, Gulbis converted four of his seven break points as he booked his place in round two.

Another seed to fall was number 32 Ivan Dodig. The Croatian, who beat Rafael Nadal in Montreal recently, went down in five sets to former world number three Nikolay Davydenko.