Roger Federer has made light of energy-sapping conditions to brush past Yoshihito Nishioka in his opening match at the US Open while Novak Djokovic battled to a first-round win.
Where other players had slogged through long rallies as the temperature hit 35C on Tuesday, Federer kept his time on court to a minimum with a 6-2 6-2 6-4 victory in an evening match on Arthur Ashe Stadium.
"I'm happy to be back in New York, healthy - the last couple of years have been difficult so it's nice to be back, feeling really good," Federer said in his court-side interview.
The Swiss second seed has not lost in 18 opening round matches at Flushing Meadows and joked that he should retire to maintain his impressive streak.
"I'm happy I never stumbled at the first hurdle. It's almost time to retire but not yet," the 37-year-old said.
Federer broke the Japanese left-hander in the opening game of the one-sided encounter and never looked back.
He took just over an hour to close out the first two sets and led 4-0 in the third before Nishioka rallied briefly.
But Federer served out the match to move on to a meeting with Frenchman Benoit Paire.
Djokovic overcame Marton Fucsovic in punishing temperatures that prompted officials to observe a heat rule for men's singles matches for the first time.
The Serb sixth seed looked in real trouble in the steamy conditions and admitted to feeling sick during the almost three hour encounter but recovered to win 6-3 3-6 6-4 6-0.
The players took a 10-minute break between the third and fourth sets to help them cope with the conditions and spent the downtime side-by-side, "naked in the ice baths," Djokovic said in a post-match broadcast interview.
"It was quite a magnificent feeling, I must say."
In between the action, both players draped themselves in ice towels and at one point Djokovic sat shirtless in his seat.
"For the first three sets, it was a survival mode for both of us," Djokovic said.
Marin Cilic clinched a second-round berth after opponent Marius Copil of Romania retired with a left-arm strain in the third set trailing the seventh-ranked Croatian 7-5 6-1 1-1.
The seventh-seeded Cilic, who said it was "one of the most brutal days that we had so far this year," told reporters the heat, plus the pressure of the shot clock introduced at the tournament this year, had proved challenging.
German fourth seed Alexander Zverev hit 37 winners on his way to dispatching lucky loser Peter Polansky 6-2 6-1 6-2 in an hour and 35 minutes.
"It's never easy and obviously the conditions are tough for everyone because of the heat and humidity," Zverev said in an on-court interview.
Other first-round winners on Tuesday were Spanish 12th seed Pablo Carreno Busta, Argentine 13th seed Diego Schwartzman, 14th-seeded Italian Fabio Fognini, Japanese 21st seed Kei Nishikori, 23rd-seeded South Korean Hyeon Chung and French 26th seed Richard Gasquet.
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