Raonic, Levine advance

MELBOURNE, Australia—Canada’s Milos Raonic overcame a shaky start to win his opening match at the Australian Open today.
Raonic dropped the first set but reversed his momentum to score a 3-6, 6-1, 6-2, 7-6 (0) victory over Jan Hajek of the Czech Republic to advance to the second round.

The 13th-ranked Thornhill, Ont. native used his power serve to bomb Hajek with 30 aces and broke serve four times from 15 chances, ending with 57 winners and 50 unforced errors.
But he wasn’t particularly pleased with his effort.
“It was not my finest two-and-a-half hours,” admitted Raonic.
“I wasn’t putting anything on the ball the whole match, I was playing a little bit tight,” he noted. “I wasn’t hitting freely.
“I was just letting him get in the points and get in the match.”
Raonic also dominated the fourth-set tiebreaker, winning on the first of six match points in windy conditions he said weren’t a factor.
“The wind wasn’t that bad, as bad as it seemed, it was actually pretty OK to play,” he noted.
“I just wasn’t swinging freely, and then just the wind seem a lot worse than it is.
“But it was the first match,” he reasoned. “I’m just looking to get better and better.”
Later, Ottawa’s Jesse Levine outslugged Spain’s Tommy Robredo, a former world No. 5, 7-6 (5), 6-7 (2), 6-4, 6-4 in a match that went just over three hours.
Levine, playing in his first Grand Slam as a Canadian after previously representing the United States, will face 12th-seeded Gilles Simon of France in the second round.
“You are always happy to win any match in a Slam,” noted Levine, who said he made his change of nationality because he felt at age 25 that the time was right.
“The first two sets were tie-breakers against a tough player,” he added. “I’m happy I played really well.”
Earlier, Rebecca Marino made a losing start to the season after being eliminated 6-3, 6-0 in the first round of women’s play by China’s Peng Shuai.
The match was the first in a main draw this season for the 22-year-old Vancouver native, who took more than half-a-year off in 2012 to get her focus back.
“This is my first Grand Slam back and you could tell I was rusty,” noted Marino, who said had she not taken time away from the game, she wouldn’t have been on the court today.
“I had a lot of nerves at the start—jelly legs.”