Federer eases past Kukushkin in Swiss Indoors

BASEL, Switzerland — Roger Federer eased to a 6-1, 6-2 first-round win at his hometown Swiss Indoors on Tuesday (Wednesday in Manila) against Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan.

Top-seeded Federer, a six-time champion at Basel, took just 55 minutes to complete victory over 64th-ranked Kukushkin.

Federer created 13 break-point chances and took four of them to clinch his first win in more than five weeks.

Since winning two Davis Cup singles rubbers against the Netherlands, also played on indoor hard courts in Switzerland, Federer lost his opening Shanghai Masters match against Albert Ramos-Vinolas of Spain.

Federer's Round of 16 opponent on Thursday will be Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany, who beat Jerzy Janowicz of Poland, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.

Also Tuesday, sixth-seeded John Isner of the United States fired down 19 aces in beating Ernests Gulbis of Latvia, 6-3, 6-4.

Eighth-seeded David Goffin of Belgium, runner-up against Federer last year, rallied to beat Andreas Seppi of Italy, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.

Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria earned a second-round match against Rafael Nadal by beating Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine, 6-3, 6-4, and Croatian Dusan Lajovic advanced when another Ukrainian Alexandr Dolgopolov retired when the score was 6-4, 2-0.