Roger Federer of Switzerland gestures during the men's singles first round match against Diego Hartfield of Argentina at the Australian Open Tennis Tournament in Melbourne, Jan. 15, 2008.  - Xinhua

World No. 1 Roger Federer began his bid for the 3rd Grand Slam crown with a straight sets win ove rArgentine Diego Hartfield in the men's single first round of the Australian Open in Melbourne.

A stomach virus disrupted Federer's preparations for the event, but the top seed showed his overwhelming power over Hartfield and ran to a 6-0, 6-3, 6-0 victory against the world No. 107.

Federer will face Fabrice Santoro of France in the second round. The Frenchman defeated American John Isner 6-2, 6-2, 6-4 early yesterday.

In the men's first round, third seed Novak Djokovic advanced after beat German Benjamin Becker 6-0, 6-2, 7-6(5) with a hard work in Melbourne.

The Serb star claimed the first two sets win easily but faced a tougher battle in the third when the German forced it into a tiebreaker. He faced a service break in the third set but battled back to level the scores and take the tiebreak 7-5.

Tuesday is also an easy day for Lleyton Hewitt as the Australian favorite eased into the next round with straight sets 6-0, 6-3, 6-0 win over Belgian Steve Darcis.

In women's single, world No. 2 Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia beat Nathalie Dechy of France 6-3, 6-1, while eight seeded Venus Williams also book a 6-2, 7-5 win over Chinese Yanzi.

Ana Ivanovic, Anna Chakvetadze and Daniela Hantuchova all successfully negotiated their first round matches to claim their places in the next round.