Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland
Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland falls during his men's singles first round match against Marsel Ilhan of Turkey at the Australian Open 2015 tennis tournament in Melbourne January 20, 2015. Wawrinka defeated Ilhan to win the match. Reuters

Defending champion Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland and World No. 1 Novak Djokovic of Serbia took care of business in the first round of the 2015 Australian Open both winning their opening matches in straight sets in the first Grand Slam tournament of the year. Wawrinka defeated Turkey’s Marsel Ilhan, 6-1, 6-4, 6-2 while Djokovic beat Slovenia’s Aljaz Bedene, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4.

“Yeah, it was great. I was happy to be back on the court. I can feel that I have a lot of support here, and it's always nice to come back like that and to feel the crowd behind you. For sure it's great, but it's still the beginning of the tournament. First round. It's just one match, now I need to be ready for the next one,” Wawrinka said in the tournament’s official website in the post-match interview when queried about the crowd’s treatment to him as the defending champion. The Swiss No. 2 dominated Spaniard Rafael Nadal in last year’s final, 6–3, 6–2, 3–6, 6–3.

Wawrinka finished the match in just one hour and 29 minutes, thanks mainly to a 20-minute first set. Wawrinka power through with 8 aces, five in the final set and had 34 winners to his opponent’s 16. Meanwhile, Djokovic survived his opponent’s 12 aces for the match by avoiding being broken and attacking the net aggressively for 13/16 net points or 81 per cent. Djokovic admitted that preparation was affected because of a virus days before the start of the Aussie Open but said that he’s starting to get healthy.

“Yes. I mean, they're fading away. It hasn't been an ideal couple of weeks in terms of health and preparation. But, you know, I fighted my way through. Now it's behind me. I'm only looking forward. I think I did well in terms of responding to the slow start today, feeling a little bit rusty on the court. So hopefully the next one will be even better,” Djokovic shared at ausopen.com.

In other matches involving seeded players Milos Raonic (No. 8) of Canada defeated Illya Marchenko of Ukraine in tough straight sets, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (3), 6-3 while Kei Nishikori (No. 5) of Japan beat Nicolas Almagro of Spain also in straight sets, 7-4, 7-6 (1), 6-2.

Email j.gloria@IBTimes.com.au to contact author of this article.

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