Medvedev lays down Melbourne marker as women seeds sail through

MELBOURNE – Daniil Medvedev underlined his status as the man to beat in the absence of Novak Djokovic with a convincing first-round victory at the Australian Open on Tuesday.

Top-10 women’s seeds Garbine Muguruza, Iga Swiatek and Anett Kontaveit also all made comfortable starts to their Melbourne title charges, while former number one Simona Halep won despite struggling with her serve.

But there was defeat at the first hurdle for 19-year-old US Open runner-up Leylah Fernandez, the 23rd seed going down 6-4, 6-2 to Australian wildcard Maddison Inglis, to the delight of the home crowd.

After Sunday’s deportation of men’s defending champion and top seed Djokovic, the first Grand Slam of the year is now in full swing on day two and eager to move…