Federer and Djokovic advance, Bouchard ousted

MELBOURNE: Roger Federer overcame some feisty resistance from Alexandr Dolgopolov to cruise into the third round of the Australian Open on Wednesday, while Novak Djokovic saw off French wildcard Quentin Halys and Eugenie Bouchard’s hopes of rehabilitation came to a swift end as wily Agnieszka Radwanska sent the Canadian spinning out of the tournament.

The Swiss third seed had romped through the opening set of their second round clash on Rod Laver Arena in just 26 minutes before the 27-year-old Ukrainian started to assert pressure on Federer’s serve in the second.

Federer held firm before applying some pressure of his own, eventually breaking the world number 35 in the 11th game before serving out the set in 45 minutes.

Dolgopolov’s resolve faded away in the third, with Federer breaking his opponent’s serve three times to clinch the contest in 93 minutes 6-4, 6-2 and maintain his quest for a fifth title in Melbourne.

He will next play Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov in the third round on Friday.

“It’s been going very well for me and I hope to keep it up as long as I choose to play tennis,” the 17-time grand slam winner told reporters after recording his 299th victory at a grand slam.

“The least I expect (is) to be in the third round of a slam, so I’m pumped up, playing well and feeling good,” he added.

Djokovic was at his clinically efficient best in the first two sets as he looked to be tactically three shots ahead of Halys and opened up space on court at will while he romped to a 2-0 lead inside an hour.

The 19-year-old wildcard, ranked 167th in the world, then fought back in the third set, breaking the Serb for the first time and putting him under pressure before Djokovic ran away with the tie-break and won the match 6-1 6-2 7-6(3).

Djokovic, who is aiming for a record-equalling sixth Australian Open title, will next face either Italy’s Andreas Seppi in the third round.

Meanwhile, the 21-year-old Bouchard, whose career hit the buffers last year following her break-out 2014 season when she reached the Wimbledon final, crumbled under the lights of Rod Laver Arena after sprinting into a 4-2 lead in the first set.

She lost six straight games to gift the set and an early break in the second to the Polish fourth seed, and was then powerless to mount a challenge as her forehand misfired and the errors started piling up.

Staring down the barrel at 5-2, Bouchard was presented with one last chance to rally, having prised three break-points as Radwanska served for the match.

But the 37th-ranked Canadian squandered them all in a run of four unforced errors and lost the match 6-3 7-5 6-1, capitulating meekly at the tournament that was the springboard for her sensational 2014.

“If I lose every match, I’m still happy to be out there doing what I love,” she said.

“I just want to play as much as possible and I kind of almost want to play catch-up,” Bouchard said.

Meanwhile, Seventh seed Kei Nishikori cruised into the third round with a 6-3 7-6(5) 6-3 win over Austin Krajicek and Czech Tomas Berdych, seeded one place above the Japanese, also only needed three sets to power past Bosnia’s Mirza Basic 6-4 6-0 6-3.

There was a minor upset when twice grand slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova, a title winner in Sydney last week, was dumped out of the tournament by Kateryna Bondarenko 6-1 7-5, but the major ruction in the women’s draw came later.

Kvitova suffered from glandula fever last year and pulled out of the Australian Open warm-up events in Shenzhen and Sydney with a gastro-intestinal illness, but paid full credit to Moscow-born Gavrilova — the only one of nine Australian women in the draw to survive the first round.

“I think she played a really good game today and did what she needed to do,” she said. “I felt a little bit tired on court today and my serve didn’t work,” she added.