Australian Open 2014 News

Under Amelie Mauresmo's tutelage, Briton Andy Murray won seven titles, including his first two on clay and reached the final of the Australian Open in 2015 and 2016.

Yuki Bhambri made a good comeback after losing the first set but could not maintain the momentum against world number 153 opponent, losing 3-6 6-1 2-6 after one hour and 45 minutes.

Serena Williams cemented her dominance of the sport with 11 titles last year, including the US and French Opens.

Playing together for the first time after rejoining forces, third seeded Indo-Pak pair recorded a hard-fought 7-6(5) 6-7(2) 10-3 win over the unseeded Dutch-Romanian team in one hour and 41 minutes.

Navratilova said she expects the American to equal her total of 18 Grand Slam singles titles at the Australian Open starting in Melbourne this month and go on to better Graf's record of 22.

Roger Federer, who was using the Brisbane tournament as an Australian Open warm-up for the first time, said he felt good ahead of his bid to win the year's first Grand Slam for the fifth time.

Somdev Devvarman, World No.90, put behind his shock defeat to compatriot Ramkumar Ramanathan in the ongoing Chennai Open by beating the Belgian 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 in an hour and 43 minutes.

Sloane Stephens retired after dropping her first set in her singles clash with the Czech Republic's Petra Kvitova.

Nadia Petrova's mother - Nadezhda Ilyina - died in a car accident in the Moscow region on December 7.

The second seed Indian, ranked 204, had beaten the New Zealander in October en route to his Challenger title win in Traralgon.

Tennis legend Rod Laver says 17-time Grand Slam winner Roger Federer will not quit the sport just because he had a bad season in 2013.

Fifth seeds Bhupathi and his Russian partner Nadia Petrova lost 3-5, 6-3, 11-13 to the Australian combine of Jarmila Gajdosova and Matthew Ebden. Sania and Bryan were the first to take the court and the profligate combination frittered away seven of the eight break points it earned and ended up being broken twice by the rival pair, which clinched the opening set ...

Now Bhupathi has joined Leander Paes, Rohan Bopanna and Sania Mirza in the pre-quarter-finals.

Paes and Elena Vesnina overcame a stiff resistance from unseeded team of Pakistan's Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi and Sofia Arvidsson of Sweden in the first round.

Bhupathi and Nestor beat Romanian Victor Hanescu and Slovak Martin Klizan with a 6-1, 7-6 (8), while Bopanna and Ram lost to Italians Simone Bolelli and Fabio Fagnini with 2-6, 6-7 (3).

As play got underway, mechanical roofs stayed open on the Rod Laver and Hisense arenas with officials closely monitoring the air temperature and humidity.

Bopanna and American Rajeev Ram, seeded 12th defeated Australian pair of Thanasi Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrgios 6-2 6-4 in their first round. Fifth seeded duo of Mahesh Bhupathi and Canadian Daniel Nestor ousted the Spanish pair of Pablo Andujar and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-2 6-4 in their first round match.

Djokovic is bidding to become the first player in the Open Era to win three consecutive Australian Opens and was in a different league to Mathieu, running through to his 15th straight match win in Melbourne.