Federer serves up dominant first-round win against Istomin

MELBOURNE (Agencies): Defending champion Roger Federer served straight through Denis Istomin to win their first-round encounter at the Australian Open on Monday, securing a 6-3 6-4 6-4 victory. Istomin, of Uzbekistan, has twice reached the fourth round of a Grand Slam and proved to be a worthy combatant from the back of the court with his heavy, aggressive, baseline game.

But the Swiss third seed’s mountainous serve proved too big an obstacle for his opponent to climb and Federer was not seriously challenged in his own service games. Federer will play British qualifier Dan Evans, ranked 189 in the world, in the second round. “I think I can trust my second serve in particular; when you trust your second serve, you can go after your first serve,” Federer told journalists. “I started to feel that midway through the first set it was going to be difficult for Denis to get into my service games. That relaxes you from the baseline.