(Melbourne) World No.1 Carlos Alcaraz delivered a serious, if not perfect, match to advance to the second round of the Australian Open on Sunday, the only Grand Slam tournament missing from his record.

For his first official match since his separation in mid-December with his historic coach Juan Carlos Ferrero, the 22-year-old Spaniard won 6-3, 7-6 (7/2), 6-2 against the Australian Adam Walton (81e).

Now coached only by Samuel Lopez, who joined his team at the end of 2024, Alcaraz started the game well, breaking his opponent at 4-3 in the first set before concluding the set on his serve.

But Walton responded at the start of the second set, breaking away at 3-1 before the boss of the ATP circuit pulled back to push the Australian to the tiebreaker, easily won 7/2 by the Spaniard.

In the third set, Alcaraz broke with a shutout at 3-2 to fly to victory, acquired after a little over two hours of match.

The next opponent for the world No.1 will be the German Yannick Hanfmann (102e), who on Sunday disposed of the American Zachary Svajda (143e), from the qualifications.

The Alcaraz-Walton duel was the last match of the first day at the Central, before the entry into contention scheduled for Monday of the ten-time Australian Open winner Novak Djokovic (4e), the triple finalist in Melbourne Daniil Medvedev (12e) and the winner of the 2014 edition Stan Wawrinka (139e), invited by the organizers at the start of his last professional season.