Australian Open 2019: 3 Talking Points as Roger  Federer opens his account with a straight-set victory

The first Grand Slam of the year, the Australian Open, began today at Melbourne Park in Melbourne.

The day session went by quite smoothly, with the big guns going through to the second round with relative ease. Andy Murray fell to Roberto Bautista Agut in a gruelling and emotional 5-set encounter. He came back from 2 sets down to level the match but did not have enough in the tank to go all the way.

Meanwhile, defending champion and world no. 3 Roger Federer began his campaign with a relatively easy win over Uzbekistan's Denis Istomin in the final match on Rod Laver Arena. Istomin was the man who defeated Novak Djokovic in 2017 in the 2nd round but Federer ensured that no such upset takes place this year as he won in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4, in 1 hour and 57 minutes.

He will take on Great Britain's Dan Evans in the 2nd round on January 16.

Here are 3 talking points from his victory over Istomin:

#3 Did not face a single break point but converted only 33%

One of Roger Federer's greatest weapons is his serve. Despite not having a huge serve like John Isner or Ivo Karlovic, Federer's serve is considered to be one of the best on the tour. If we look at his serve statistics today, he managed only 56% of his first serves against Istomin.

However, despite that, he did not face a single break point in the entire match. On the other hand, his break-point conversion was quite poor, winning just 3 out of 9 break points he faced. He could have finished the match earlier but due to a few long games, it went on for almost 2 hours.

This has been a recurring issue for Federer and he would hope to fix this as the tournament progresses.

#2 Poor first serve percentage from Federer

He will hope to improve his first serve percentage

Expanding on from the previous point about his serve, Federer managed to keep just 56% of his first serves in. While this did not affect him against a player like Istomin, it would be dangerous against any of the top players.

Federer has relied on his first serve to get him out of sticky situations over the years. Luckily for him, Istomin wasn't able to take much advantage of the poor first serve percentage by the Swiss Maestro. Fortunately for him, he won 67% of his second serves, which helped him a lot.

However, Federer will need to improve this aspect of his game going forward in the tournament, especially in the latter stages where he could be facing the likes of Marin Cilic, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic.

He will now take on Dan Evans in the 2nd round.

#1 Moved around the court well and conserved energy

He moved around the court well

Towards the end of 2018, Federer was not looking very sharp on the court and wasn't moving well. This was one of the biggest reasons for his losses last year.

However, he began extremely well today and looked quite comfortable out on the court, moving around with ease and conserving energy as well. He took the attack to Istomin when it mattered and ensured that he got a break of serve in all three sets. He did have chances to break more than once in each set but Istomin managed to save those break points.

The placement of his shots was perfect and he approached the net whenever he saw an opportunity.

All in all, it was the perfect start for the Swiss Maestro to his 2019 campaign. He still has a long way to go, though, and a lot of points to defend as well.