A little punch of the air, a big smile and Roger Federer was back.
Six months after injuring his knee at Wimbledon, the 17-times grand slam champion made a winning return to the court, beating Jurgen Melzer of Austria 7-5, 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 to reach the second round of the Australian Open.
There might even have been a few nerves from Federer, especially in the early stages as he was broken for 4-2 by his fellow 35-year-old.
But the former world No.1, seeded 17 this year, hit back to take the set and when he led 3-1 in the second, it looked like he would be off in a hurry but Melzer played some stunning tennis to win five straight games and level the match.
Federer, who was given a rapturous reception by the crowd, stepped up a level in the third and fourth sets, though, to seal a second-round meeting with American Noah Rubin.
“It is good to be back,” Federer said. “Even if I’d lost it would have been good because I am on the court.
“It’s been a long road back but now hopefully I’ll stick around for a while.”
Meanwhile, Federer may not think Nick Kyrgios can win the title this year – “can he win back to back to back to back against four or five top players? I don’t think so,” he said – but the Australian made a superb start to his campaign.
Kyrgios was at his dynamic best as he crushed Gastao Elias of Portugal, despite his sore knee, and said he was keen not to waste any energy.
“In general, if you happen to go deep, it gets pretty tiring,” he said. “So you just want to reserve that mental energy and other parts of your body as well. The quicker you can get it done, the better it is for deeper in the week.
The 21-year-old, who is seeded 13th, now plays Italy’s Andreas Seppo while the Swiss No.1, Stan Wawrinka, recovered from a break down in the fifth to beat Martin Klizan of Slovakia.
Kyrgios refused to respond to Federer's words but said he was confident in his ability.
"If I didn't think I'd win it, why would I play?" he said. "I think I can win it. I've beaten pretty much everyone in the draw before. So I think so."
Defending women’s champion Angelique Kerber dropped a set but recovered to beat Lesia Tsurenko of Ukraine 6-2, 5-7, 6-2 but fourth seed Simona Halep, carrying a knee issue, was dumped out 6-3, 6-1 by American Shelby Rogers.
“I think it's always good to have a match like this in the first few rounds,” said top seed Kerber.
“It's always tough for everybody to get the rhythm and to start the tournament, especially at the grand slams, in the first grand slam of the year.
“So I think it was not so bad to have a match like that in the first round.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here