Novak Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka open their Australian Open campaigns with encouraging wins

Australian Open 2018: Djokovic crushed Donald Young 6-1, 6-2, 6-4, while Wawrinka recovered from a mid-match slump to beat Ricardas Berankis 6-3, 6-4, 2-6, 7-6

Novak Djokovic avoided an ignoble first-round exit (Getty)

Neither man had played a competitive match for six months and both confirmed their participation only 48 hours before the tournament started, but Novak Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka opened their Australian Open campaigns with encouraging victories here on Tuesday.

Djokovic, who has been troubled by an elbow injury, crushed Donald Young 6-1, 6-2, 6-4, while Wawrinka, who had knee surgery last summer, recovered from a mid-match slump to beat Ricardas Berankis 6-3, 6-4, 2-6, 7-6.

Wearing a compression sleeve to protect the right elbow injury which had kept him off the court since Wimbledon and using his shortened service action, Djokovic dropped serve against Young only once.

“It felt great to be back on the court and compete again,” the six-times Australian Open champion said afterwards. “It's been a while. Obviously you don't know how you're going to start off.

“I’ve been putting in a lot of hours on the court in the last couple of weeks and I played a lot of practice sets. I had only one match leading up to this tournament in [the exhibition tournament at] Kooyong.

“In more or less all of these practice sessions, I could feel that I was hitting the ball well. I was obviously hoping that this was going to continue and be transferred into the first round of Australian Open, but playing a practice set and playing an official match in a Grand Slam is quite different, because, you have nerves that kick in.

“But I used my experience of being in these particular circumstances so many times in my life and that enabled me to keep my focus and start off well with the right intensity.”

Djokovic demonstrated a shortened service action (Getty)

Asked about his serve, Djokovic said: “The second serve was very, very good. I'm very happy with the second serve. The first serve was kind of up and down. When you come back after a long time and you play your first match, obviously everything is a bit exaggerated, whatever is not working well.

“All in all, I'm quite pleased. I know that it's going to take a little bit of time for me to work my way in and get used to the specific changes that I've made in my service motion. It wasn't ideal, but it was still good. I'm looking forward to working on it more.”

Wawrinka, who has been off the court for the same time as Djokovic, started in convincing fashion but appeared to be flagging when he lost the third set and trailed 3-0 in the fourth against Berankis. However, the 2014 Australian Open champion fought back in typically determined fashion.

Wawrinka made a winning return (Getty)

“It was great to be back,” Wawrinka said afterwards. “I'm really happy to get through a match like that, to fight the way I did today, to win the match like this. For sure, I still have some pain. It depends on the way I'm moving, how I push on it. But in general, it's going in the right direction. That's the best news.”

Milos Raonic, another player returning from injury, was beaten 6-7, 7-5, 6-4, 7-6 by Lukas Lacko, while David Goffin recovered from a set and a break down to beat Matthias Bachinger 6-7, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4.

Roger Federer opened his campaign with a comfortable victory over Aljaz Bedene, who is back playing under a Slovenian flag after his unsuccessful attempt to represent Britain in the Davis Cup. Federer, who did not drop his serve once, won 6-3 6-4 6-3.