MELBOURNE: Japanese fifth seed Kei Nishikori beat Spaniard Nicolas Almagro in straight sets in his opening match at the Australian Open on Tuesday.
Nishikori, last year's US Open finalist, won 6-4, 7-6 (7/1), 6-2 in 2hr 7min and will next play either Croatia's Ivan Dodig or Joao Souza of Brazil.
"Nicolas serves a lot of aces and I knew it was going to be a tough first round," Nishikori said.
"It was especially so in the second set and there was really tight with a lot of breaks but it was a good tiebreak and I finished well in the third set."
Almagro, fighting back from left foot surgery which curtailed the latter half of last season, troubled Nishikori early with his strong serving and powerful single-handed backhand.
But after winning the pivotal second set tiebreaker the match swung decisively Nishikori's way to wrap up the final set in 26 minutes.
Nishikori's best performance at the Australian Open was to reach the quarter-finals in 2012.
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