Ferrer, Li lead race to beat the Melbourne heat

MELBOURNE - Top 10 seeds David Ferrer, Tomas Berdych, Stan Wawrinka and Richard Gasquet raced into the second round of the Australian Open on Monday, apparently eager to make the most of relatively mild conditions at Melbourne Park.China’s Li Na also played like a woman on a mission and dispatched teenager Ana Konjuh 6-2 6-0 in just over an hour but American Venus Williams bid an early farewell to the tournament when she lost 2-6 6-4 6-4 to Ekaterina Makarova.“I think obviously I think my error count was a little high,” Williams told reporters. “I was hitting the ball well this week, and, you know, obviously it was disappointing to not win the first round.Novak Djokovic was due to kick off his campaign for a fourth straight Australian Open title against Lukas Lacko in the first evening match before Serena Williams opened her bid for a sixth title against local Ash Barty.With only Djokovic of the “Big Four” of men’s tennis in their half of the draw, players like Ferrer, Berdych, Wawrinka and Gasquet will rarely have a better chance to go deep in the year’s first grand slam.Ferrer started his first round match by hustling his way to a 5-0 lead in the first set before being drawn into a scrap with Colombian Alejandro Gonzalez and grinding out a 6-3 6-4 6-4 victory.Swiss Wawrinka, Djokovic’s potential quarter-final opponent, had the easiest passage in the first match on Hisense Arena when Kazakh Andrey Golubev succumbed to an ankle injury and retired while trailing 6-4 4-1.Berdych and Gasquet both went through in three sets in less than two hours, though, the seventh seeded Czech beating Aleksandr Nedovyesov 6-3 6-4 6-3 and ninth seed Gasquet downing fellow Frenchman David Guez 7-5 6-4 6-1.

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Ferrer, Li lead race to beat the Melbourne heat