Djokovic had a 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 win over Chung Hyeon of South Korea at Rod Laver Arena on Monday, immediately after women's defending champion and No. 1-ranked Serena Williams started her bid for a seventh Australian title with a 6-4, 7-5 win over No. 34-ranked Camila Giorgi.
Williams, who hadn't completed a competitive match since her bid for a calendar-year Grand Slam in 2015 ended in semifinal defeat at the US Open, was on court warming up when tennis authorities held a joint news conference at Melbourne Park to refute reports from the BBC and Buzzfeed News that match-fixing had gone unchecked in tennis.
Kermode said tennis authorities "absolutely reject any suggestion that evidence of match-fixing has been suppressed for any reason, or isn't being investigated."
Djokovic played his match, and then faced a grilling over the reports.
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"I don't think the shadow is cast over our sport," he said. "People are talking about names, guessing who these players are, guessing those names. But there's no real proof or evidence yet of any active players. As long as it's like that, it's just speculation.
"From my knowledge and information about, you know, the match-fixing or anything similar, there is nothing happening on the top level."
He said he couldn't give a definitive defense of lower-tier tournaments, but added "there is an organization, authorities, people who take care of that on a daily basis and make sure to track it down."
Two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova earned the
distinction of winning the first completed match at the tournament when she beat Thai qualifier Luksika Kumkhum, avenging her upset three-set loss in the first round here in 2014.
"Now I can breathe a little bit normally," she said. "I got really nervous before the match. I didn't sleep well actually. The memories from two years ago were a little bit difficult."
Former No.1-ranked Caroline Wozniacki lost 1-6, 7-6 (3), 6-4 to Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan, continuing a downward spiral at Melbourne Park that has resulted in her exiting one round earlier each year since she reached the 2011 semifinals.
No. 24 Sloane Stephens, who beat Serena Williams in the 2013 Australian Open quarterfinals, lost 6-3, 6-3 to Chinese qualifier Wang Qiang, while No. 26 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and No. 27 Anna Karolina Schmiedlova also went out in the first round.
Also advancing were No. 12 Marin Cilic, No. 14 Gilles Simon, No. 15 David Goffin, No. 19. Dominic Thiem and No. 26 Guillermo Garcia-Lopez. No. 22 Ivo Karlovic was the first of the men's seeds to exit the tournament when he retired due to a left knee injury while trailing Federico Delbonis 7-6 (4), 6-4, 2-1.