An ugly, ethnic brawl cast a shadow over the tennis on day one of the Australian Open in Melbourne.

As the nice guy of Australian tennis, Wayne Arthurs struggled to extend his grand slam career by at least one match, Croatian and Serbian nationalistic fervour erupted into violence on the Melbourne Park lawns.

Rival supporters took to each other with bottles and poles after insults were exchanged during the match between Croatian Mario Ancic and his Japanese opponent.

Police ejected 150 brawlers, but made no arrests.

The clash ended quickly, but with a match scheduled Tuesday evening between Croatia's Marin Cilic and Ilia Bozoljac of Serbia, a massive police presence is expected.

On the courts, the stars played on.

World No.1 Roger Federer had an interesting opening set, but eventually made relatively trouble-free progress into the second round, beating Bjorn Phau of Germany 7-5 6-0 6-4.

Federer's conqueror of last weekend, Andy Roddick had more difficulty against rising French star Jo-Wilfried Tsonga before going through 6-7 (18-20) 7-6 (7-2) 6-3 6-3.

Among the notable seeds, only Croatia's Ivan Ljubicic failed to progress, losing to American Mardy Fish 4-6 7-6 (7-2) 6-4 6-4.

For the home-town fans, though, the match of the day was provided by Arthurs.

Down two sets to nil and seemingly on the way out of his last Australian Open, Arthurs dragged himself back into his match against Stefan Koubek of Austria to win in five.

The 35-year-old had been struck down by a stomach bug at the weekend and hadn't eaten for a couple of days before the match.

He thanked the crowd for lifting him to one of his more memorable victories.

"Anytime I was sort of down, they picked me up, and I thank them for getting me over the line," Arthurs said.

The veteran of 16 years on the professional circuit had already announced this would be his last home grand slam with a retirement from all forms of tennis to be made in the next few months.

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