MELBOURNE -- What a difference a year makes for Emma Raducanu.

Last year, when she stepped onto 1573 Court at Melbourne Park for her first round at the Australian Open, she was already roiling with injuries. She needed a wheelchair to get on her flight to Melbourne. Ten days before her first match she had to have a cyst removed from her left knee. She only started hitting three days before her match. 

"That whole process was a lot of stress," Raducanu said. "We weren't sure if I was going to be able to play here."

Now? As she readied to play her first Grand Slam match in 12 months, Raducanu was ready to go.

"Now there's just a lot more calm," she said. "I think I'm more levelheaded. I think things around me have settled. I do feel better, and there's just less highs and lows around. It's just more of an equilibrium."

That settled sense of calm showed on Tuesday night at Melbourne Park. Once again scheduled for 1573 Court, Raducanu laid down her cleanest performance in over a year to defeat American Shelby Rogers 6-3, 6-2 in the first round. The 21-year-old Brit did not face a break point in the match and eased to a 76-minute victory.

Raducanu sat out much of the season last year after undergoing a trio of surgeries to address wrist and ankle injuries. Her last Grand Slam appearance came in Melbourne last year, where she advanced to the second round before bowing out to Coco Gauff. 

Like Raducanu, Rogers was sidelined for the back half of the season last year. The 31-year-old from Charleston, South Carolina underwent knee surgery after Wimbledon. The Australian Open is her first tournament since. 

Raducanu started her comeback in Auckland with a three-set nail-biter against Elena-Gabriela Ruse before losing in three sets to Elina Svitolina. While the rust was understandable and evident in Auckland, there was little to complain about in her opening performance in Melbourne.

Serving at 62 percent, Raducanu won 91 percent of her first-serve points. Facing Rogers' powerful serve, Raducanu landed 78 percent of her returns and broke three times from five break points. She struck one more winner than Rogers, 16 to 15, while maintaining a far cleaner sheet, hitting 16 unforced errors to Rogers' 35.

It was a pitch-perfect performance from Raducanu, and one that lays a solid foundation for her return to Grand Slam play. 

"I think the time away made me very hungry,' she said. "I'm just happy to be healthy again and pain-free."

Raducanu will face China's Wang Yafan on Thursday. The World No.94 engineered a remarkable rally to earn her first win in Melbourne since 2019. After losing the first nine games to 22nd-seed Sorana Cirstea, Wang stormed back to win 0-6, 7-5, 6-2. The victory is Wang's first Top 30 win of the year.

Katie Boulter joined Raducanu in the second round after defeating China's Yuan Yue, 7-5, 7-6(1) in the first round. The two British hopefuls have landed in the same section of the draw and could face each other in the third round.

But first, Boulter takes on the task of causing the upset of 12th seed Zheng Qinwen in the second round. Zheng, the Hologic WTA Tour's Most Improved Player last season, needed three sets to defeat No.76 Ashlyn Krueger 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 in her opener.