Greek fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas served up a tennis masterclass to veteran Frenchman Gilles Simon during a 6-1 6-2 6-1 thrashing to open his Australian Open campaign on Tuesday.
The 2019 Melbourne Park semi-finalist barely broke sweat during the final match on Rod Laver Arena and did not face a break point against the 36-year-old Simon, who is ranked 66th in the world.
In his first meeting with the former world number six, Tsitsipas broke Simon’s serve twice in the first two sets and a further three times to ease into the second round.
“I don’t know what to say. I obviously wasn’t expecting it to come so easy,” Tsitsipas said in his on-court interview. “I was surprised.
“It was a great match from my side. I think I played a spectacular match from the beginning to the end.”
The Greek will next meet Australian wildcard Thanasi Kokkinakis, who breezed past Kwon Soon-woo of South Korea 6-4 6-1 6-1.
In the women’s draw, world number one Ash Barty doled out the dreaded ‘double bagel’ to Danka Kovinic in the first round on Tuesday, humiliating the error-prone Montenegrin 6-0 6-0 on Rod Laver Arena.
Barty, looking to become the first homegrown champion at the Grand Slam since 1978, won the first 16 points of the one-sided contest and never looked back, wrapping up the win in 44 minutes.
“This is what it’s all about, this is incredible,” the Australian said to cheers from the crowd.
“It’s impossible not to enjoy a night session on this beautiful court.”
Next up for Barty is a second-round match against Spain’s Sara Sorribes Tormo or local wildcard Daria Gavrilova.
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