THE FIRST ROUND of the Australian Open produced several top-class matches but it was generally pretty uneventful for the leading seeds.

On the men’s side, the top 10 dropped a grand total of one set between them with Rafael Nadal having a particularly easy victory.

The world number one faced Brazilian Marcus Daniel a player who feels about as home on hardcourts as he would do on the surface of Mars and it was a complete mis-match from the start.

Troubled by a knee injury and with little prospect of winning a game, the Brazilian outsider retired when trailing 0-5 in the second set. You suspect it might have been a scoreboard injury but we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Robin Soderling and Andy Murray all had to work slightly harder but were never threatened in routine straight set victories.

Further down the rankings there was plenty of drama with Frenchmen Gael Monfils and Jo Wilfried Tsonga both recovering from two set deficits to get the better of Thiemo de Bakker and Philipp Petzschner respectively.

In total an incredible 13 of the first round matches went the distance and the winners will be thankful that Melbourne has been unseasonably cool for the last couple of days.

The biggest casualty on the men’s side was Nikolay Davydenko who fell to the unorthodox German Florian Mayer. The Russian 22nd seed looked to be nearing his best when destroying Nadal in Doha earlier this month but he had no answer to his opponent’s constant variety and fell in four.

The American 18th seed Sam Querrey and big-hitting Latvian Ernests Gulbis, seeded 23, were other significant first-round losers.

The match of the round on paper was undoubtedly Lleyton Hewitt against David Nalbandian in a repeat of the 2002 Wimbledon final and it certainly lived up to the billing with Nalbandian eventually prevailing in the kind of five-set epic that both these recent hip-surgery patients could have done without.

The Argentinean saved two match points late in the fifth set, the first with an outrageous half-volley drop shot, before eventually prevailing 9-7 in a match that finished after 1am in Melbourne when approaching the five-hour mark.

The highest profile clash on the women’s side was the polar opposite with Kim Clijsters handing Dinara Safina the dreaded double-bagel.

The Russian was world number one as recently as 2009 but has been plagued by back problems for the last year and faces a long road back to the top if that showing is anything to go by.

Another former world number 1 to fall at the first hurdle was Anna Ivanovic with the 19th seeded Serb losing to Russia’s Ekaterina Makarova. Otherwise, the leading ladies had a pretty comfortable time of it in their openers.

The pick of the second-round matches looks to be Marcos Baghdatis v Juan Martin Del Potro.

Baghdatis was a runner-up in Melbourne in 2008 and always has huge vocal support from Melbourne’s large Greek/Cypriot expat community while Del Potro showed glimpses of the form that made him a US champion in 2009 in his first round win against Dudi Sela.

Sixth-seed Tomas Berrdych takes on powerful German Philip Kohlschreiber in a match that looks primed for an upset while the great Australian hope Bernard Tomic will face Spanish lefty Feliciano Lopez with the winner likely to get a shot at Nadal in round three.

The most attractive upcoming match on the ladies side is second seed and personal financial investment, Vera Zvonareva (10/1) against Serbian prospect Bojana Jovanovski. I’m expecting more than a few jittery moments in that one providing I can stay awake.

Whether these jitters will be caused by nerves or too much caffeine, I can’t say but either way several more action-packed sleepless nights await.