A few months ago, an academic accused the Slams of pairing Federer and Djokovic in the same half.  Indeed, this happened all four Slams in 2011 and all but one Slam in 2010.  It’s happened way more often than statistics would tell you.  At the Australian Open, Federer and Nadal finally fell in the same half.  But the other accusation, this time by ESPN was that top pros at the Slams get easier draws than they should.

At the Aussie Open, this still seems to be true as both Federer and Nadal both faced qualifiers and even Djokovic played someone ranked around 100.  Only Andy Murray had a sufficiently challenging opening round in facing Ryan Harrison.

Nadal won his match handily over Alex Kuznetsov 64 61 61.  Despite his name, Kuznetsov is American (one would imagine Russian–and he may well be a la Bogomolov).  Most players know how they should play Nadal.  Hit hard.  However, most players when hitting hard make way too many errors and so Nadal often has to do less work.  He can be steady and let the errors do the work.  Nadal did try to play somewhat aggressive perhaps in anticipation of later rounds.  Nadal’s knee was wrapped up.  Last year, he had a hamstring issue.  It may simply be that Nadal loves to train and always overtrains this time of year because he can’t help it.

Federer also had an easy time with a Russian, Alexander Kudryatsev, 75 62 62.

A few other players struggled.  Alexandr Dolgopolov needed five sets to beat Australian Greg Jones after going down two sets to love.  This may have been due to Dolgopolov’s injury that affected him in Brisbane.  Donald Young was cruising along up two sets to none over German Peter Gojowczyk when the German won the next two sets and got up a break in the fifth.  Young then won a bunch of games and took the fifth set 64.

Tommy Haas, the oldest player in the tournament, took on Denis Kudla, one of the youngest.  Kudla, the young American, took a set off the oft-injured veteran, but was unable to win as Haas took the match in four sets.

Up and coming star Grigor Dmitrov needed five sets to beat wily Frenchman, Jeremy Chardy.

Ukrainian Sergiy Stakhovsky had to work hard to beat fellow Ukrainian Illya Marchenko in a five setter.

Olivier Rochus, a finalist in Auckland, had no problems in a straight set win over Bjorn Phau.  On the other hand, Jarkko Niemien who had to rush from Sydney to Melbourne after playing in both the singles and doubles final retired against David Nalbandian after two sets.

On Day 2, the top half of the draw plays.  Djokovic and Murray are the top two seeds in this half.