MELBOURNE, Australia -- Taylor Fritz showed just how dramatically life has changed for both he and Jenson Brooksby since their last Grand Slam meeting as Fritz took less than two hours to clinch their first-round match at the Australian Open on Tuesday.
Fritz is seeded fourth, was the US Open runner-up last year and helped the U.S. team win the United Cup in Sydney last week.
He needed just 1¾ hours for a 6-2, 6-0, 6-3 win at John Cain Arena against fellow American Brooksby, who was playing his first event at any level in two years.
Brooksby has a protected ranking of No. 52 after surgery on both wrists in 2023 and that helped him get a spot in the main draw at the year's first major.
He saved a match point with a lunging, angled backhand winner when he was almost down on one knee. But otherwise, it really was over quickly.
Brooksby, 24, won his only previous match against Fritz at the 2021 US Open, where he reached the fourth round as a wild-card entry.
Now, while he's contemplating his next move on the road back to a ranking, it will be Fritz aiming to keep moving through the rounds at Melbourne Park, where he reached the quarterfinals last year. It was a run that set him on course for success in 2024.
"I guess that first match in the Slam there's a bit of nerves," Fritz said, "So I did a really good job."
Days after Gael Monfils became the oldest player to win an ATP Tour title, the 38-year-old tour veteran outdueled up-and-coming fellow Frenchman Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard.
Monfils wasted match points in the third set and on Mpetshi Perricard's serve in the fifth before finally clinching a 7-6 (7), 6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-7 (5), 6-4 victory.
Monfils said he usually tries to avoid thinking about age gaps with competitors, "but I can tell you that tomorrow morning I will be (feeling) more 48 than 38."
Monfils and the 21-year-old Mpetshi Perricard entered the match at opposite ends of the career spectrum, but share a passion for their sport. Both use between-the-legs shots at times during rallies, and sometimes take the unconventional approach to setting up points.
With a career record of 34-18 as the Australian Open, where he reached the quarterfinals in 2016 and 2022, Monfils had the advantage against a player on debut at Melbourne Park.
Mpetshi Perricard had never advanced beyond the first round at any major other than Wimbledon (where he reached the fourth round as a lucky loser last year) but he was seeded 30th after a breakout year in 2024 that included two titles.
Monfils, who has won more Grand Slam singles matches than any other French man, now also has a 20-19 win-loss record in five-set matches.
After winning the trophy in Auckland, he said "I've been enjoying myself since the first day I played tennis and (at) 60 years old I will still have this joy."
Italy's Lorenzo Musetti showed up without his man bun, and wound up winning his first-round match by, um, a hair.
The 16th-seeded Musetti, a Wimbledon semifinalist last July and Paris Olympics bronze medalist last August, needed 4 hours, 6 minutes to get past countryman Matteo Arnaldi 7-6 (4), 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-3.
"For now, the short hair had a good start in Australia. Let's hope it can bring me luck," Musetti said. "It's a new look. But if I hadn't had such long hair for such a long time, people wouldn't even have noticed it."
In other early men's results, No. 19 Karen Khachanov advanced over Adrian Mannarino, 7-6 (5), 6-3, 6-3, and Matteo Berrettini beat Cameron Norrie 6-7 (4), 6-4, 6-1, 6-3.
It was Berrettini's first win at Melbourne Park since his semifinal run in 2022.
"It's been a long time since I won a match here," said Berrettini, who suffered a first-round loss in 2023 and missed the Slam last year.
He next faces Denmark's Holger Rune, the No. 13 seed who advanced despite a roller-coaster match to beat China's Zhang Zhizhen 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 6-4.
"Very exciting match. We played twice last year, two three-set matches [at Masters events]. Luckily I got to win those two but let's see," Rune said.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.