The ongoing woes of Rafael Nadal

On Tuesday, Verdasco looked headed for the exit when he trailed 0-2 early in the fifth set, only to reel off six straight games to snatch only his third victory in 17 encounters with Nadal.

The game reversed an epic 5-hour, 14-minute semifinal Nadal and Verdasco played in 2009 at Melbourne Park, which Nadal won in five sets and went on to take the title.

But in Nadal’s first-round match at the 2016 Australian Open, he was pushed to the brink by Fernando Verdasco before dropping a five-set thriller.

Verdasco went for everything on his ground strokes, ripping 90 winners against only 37 for Nadal as he worked to the extremes to unsettle his former No. 1-ranked rival.

“I think I played unbelievable in the final set from that early break and I started hitting winners”, said Verdasco.

Fortune often plays a part in the defeat of Nadal and so it proved for Verdasco, who swung wildly at a second serve with the frame of his racquet, sending the ball cross-court to clip the line and break back to 2-2.

Asked if he was frustrated by the fact he is best known for that historic loss, Verdasco added: “Still now they come to me telling me how well I played seven years ago”.

“I just started hitting winners”.

No such problems for Andy Murray as he made a winning start to his quest for his first Australian Open title as he defeated German teenager Alexander Zverev 6-1, 6-2, 6-3. “I didn’t want to make the match longer than that – to win against Rafa when you’re sets down is unbelievable”. “I was just closing the eyes and everything was going in”.

Frenchman Chardy – seeded 30 – edged through in temperatures around 31C in Melbourne and could now meet Nadal in round three. “Was not my day, but let’s keep going, that the only thing I can do”. Williams was playing great tennis for most of previous year, though obviously her sister, Serena Williams, dominates most of the discussion.

Nadal, who prior to this match held a mammoth 15-2 head-to-head against his Davis Cup teammate, was expected to win, although not easily – but now sees his run at the Australian Open brought to a halt. “To win against a top-two player, I’m so happy, so excited”.

Of course at the beginning of the fifth I was thinking about that semi-final.

“I just think that it should be tennis that does a better job of explaining”, Murray said.

Match-fixing speculation also continued to reverberate on day two as more players revealed approaches after a BBC and BuzzFeed report said corruption was widespread in the sport. The 35-year-old Williams refused to speak with reporters after the match.

This latest worrying setback for Nadal has extended a Grand Slam barren spell which goes back to the 2014 French Open.

Eighth seed David Federer kept the Spanish hopes alive while Milos Raonic also sailed through to the next round with convincing victories.