Roger Federer made light of energy-sapping conditions to brush past Yoshihito Nishioka 6-2, 6-2, 6-4 in his opening match at the U.S. Open on Tuesday.
Where other players had slogged through long rallies as the temperature hit 32 degrees Celsius, Federer kept his time on court to a minimum with a master class of serve-and-volley tennis, pulling the industrious world No. 177 from one side of the court to the other at will.
Federer, the second seed, broke the Japanese left-hander in the opening game of the one-sided encounter and never looked back, rattling through his service games with a minimum of fuss to wrap up the first set in 28 minutes.