London, Jun 24 (IANS): Top seed Novak Djokovic and third seed Andy Murray sailed through with straight-set wins at the opening round of the Wimbledon championships here Monday.
Djokovic of Serbia defeated Andrey Golubev of Kazakhstan 6-0, 6- 1, 6-4 while defending champion Murray made short work of David Goffin from Belgium 6-1, 6-4, 7-5, reports Xinhua.
Djokovic, playing his first match since the Roland Garros final, won the first 11 games before Golubev managed to get on the scoreboard.
The Serbian broke to go up 5-4 in the third set and wrapped up the victory after 87 minutes. He struck 34 winners and did not face any break points on serve.
"It was a great start," he said. "Obviously first official match on a grass court this year. Coming into Wimbledon with no official matches, it always gives you an extra reason to get that commitment and focus from the start and try to play as best as you can, so that's what I did. Very, very pleased with my performance overall today."
The world No. 2 will next play Czech Radek Stepanek, whom he leads 10-1 in their head-to-head record, including a victory two years ago in the third round of Wimbledon.
Stepanek, a former Wimbledon quarter-finalist, advanced with a 6-2, 6-4, 6-4 win over Uruguay's Pablo Cuevas.
Djokovic won the Wimbledon title in 2011 with victory over Rafael Nadal and finished runner-up to Murray last year.
Murray also made a strong start with a victory over Goffin in the first round.
"I played very well. I hit the ball very well. I hit the ball clean from the beginning of the match. I thought the second and third sets were very high level. I thought he played very well. He was aggressive. He goes for his shots, moves extremely well and he's very quick around the court."
Murray next plays Slovenia's Blaz Rola, who was a 6-3, 6-1, 6-4 winner over Pablo Andujar from Spain.
Sixth seed and 2010 runner-up Tomas Berdych opened his campaign with a 6-7(5), 6-1, 6-4, 6-3 victory over Victor Hanescu of Romania.
Other winners include Latvia's Ernests Gulbis and Spain's David Ferrer.