Djokovic makes solid start to hat-trick bid

MELBOURNE: Novak Djokovic showed brief flashes of his best tennis as he began his bid for a third successive Australian Open title with a workmanlike 6-2 6-4 7-5 win over Paul-Henri Mathieu on Monday.“I thought it was a really good match. We both served well in the second and third but I managed to hold on and play well when I needed to,” said the top seed, who will play American Ryan Harrison in the second round.Maria Sharapova had earlier shown greater ruthlessness and swept aside any fears about her fitness with a 6-0 6-0 victory over Olga Puchkova.Sharapova, the 2008 champion and runner up to Victoria Azarenka last year, was quickly joined in the second round by Venus Williams and Li Na after both the former losing finalists also enjoyed emphatic wins.Men’s fifth seed Tomas Berdych progressed with a 6-3 7-5 6-3 win over American Michael Russell, while Asia’s hope Kei Nishikori brushed off his injury woes with a solid 6-7 6-3 6-1 6-3 win over Romania’s Victor Hanescu.American Williams could meet Sharapova in the third round and proved she might be a handful for the second seed by winning 12 successive games to beat Kazakh Galina Voskoboeva 6-1 6-0.Williams, playing in an eye-catching self-designed dress inspired by watercolours, lost her only Australian Open final to her sister Serena in 2003.Serena, an odds-on favourite to clinch her sixth title this year, gets her campaign underway on Tuesday.Fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska battled through a tricky first set and whipped through the second to beat Australian wildcard Bojana Bobusic 7-5 6-0 and extend her season-long winning streak to 10 matches.China’s Li Na lost to Radwanska in Sydney last week to end her own winning streak at eight matches, but the former French Open champion continued to thrive under the guidance of her new coach with a 6-1 6-3 victory over Sesil Karatantcheva.

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Djokovic makes solid start to hat-trick bid