Roddick wins easy after slow start

Second seed Andy Roddick [Images] overcame a slow start to beat Georgia's Irakli Labadze 7-5, 6-2, 6-1 and advance to the second round of the Australian Open on Tuesday.

The big-serving American fired 11 aces and broke his opponent five times to seal a comfortable victory in an hour and a half on the Melbourne Park centre court.

The first 10 games went with serve but Roddick took control late in the opening set, breaking Labadze for the first time before winning 14 of the last 17 games.

"I'm in the next round, so that's what we were looking for," Roddick said. "Obviously, it wasn't great tennis in the first set. But the last couple of sets, I felt like I started hitting the ball a little bit better.

Labadze has a miserable record in Melbourne. He was knocked out in the first round of his three previous appearances and his frustration got the better of him when he was warned for an audible obscenity in the second set.

Roddick made his afternoon more miserable when he hammered a 209 kph serve that almost hit the Georgian in the chest.

Labadaze was forced to duck for cover again a few points later when Roddick slammed an overhead smash straight at him.

Roddick, a semi-finalist in Australia in 2003 and quarter-finalist last year, has escaped the limelight this year because of the attention on Roger Federer [Images] and Lleyton Hewitt [Images] and said he wouldn't have it any other way.

"Obviously being in Lleyton's home country, that's not surprising and with Roger playing the way he has, he definitely deserves all the spotlight," Roddick said.

"With the exception of something like the U.S. Open, I don't really notice it that much. I'm not searching through the papers every morning to see what has been written or anything like that.

"I kind of just try to go business as usual. I think people ...around the game notice it a little bit more than I would."

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