Australian Open: Alcaraz cruises past Shevchenko to stay perfect in first round

Carlos Alcaraz began his quest for a career grand slam with a routine victory over Alexander Shevchenko at the Australian Open, needing fewer than two hours to reach the second round.

Four-time major champion Alcaraz has won each of the other three grand slams but never gone beyond the last eight in Melbourne, but was only troubled in the second set.

After the Spaniard wrapped up the opening set in 28 minutes, Shevchenko found back-to-back breaks to go 5-3 up in the second.

However, Alcaraz cut out the errors and stormed back with successive breaks of his own, showing aggression from the baseline to take a two-set lead.

With Shevchenko demoralised by that missed opportunity, Alcaraz stepped things up a notch by reeling off five straight games in the third set to go 5-1 up.

The 21-year-old squandered his first four match points, but a huge ace saw him get over the line at the fifth attempt, teeing up a second-round clash with Japan's Yoshihito Nishioka.

That is some seriously superior court-coverage by Carlos Alcaraz #Haier • #morecreationmorepossibilities • #performance • @espn • @eurosport • @wwos • @wowowtennis pic.twitter.com/AO5y3f1kwz
— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 13, 2025

Data Debrief: Alcaraz still perfect in first round

Alcaraz avoided an upset in Melbourne, retaining his perfect record at the first hurdle of grand slam events.

He has become just the third male player in the Open Era to win each of his first 16 first-round matches at the majors, after Bjorn Borg and Rafael Nadal.

The Spaniard also claimed his 25th match victory on hard courts at grand slams, in 31 matches. Since 2000, only Andy Roddick has needed fewer matches to bring up 25 victories, doing so in 30 outings.