New Delhi: Lleyton Hewitt's build-up for the French Open got a big boost as he won his first-round match against Sergio Roitman easily in the Hypo Group International in Portschach.
The fourth seed easily beat Argentina's Sergio Roitman 6-2, 6-2 to book his place in the second round.
It was Hewitt's first win at the tournament following his first round exit to unfancied Brazilian Marcos Daniel last year and he will next face Italian qualifier Potito Starace.
"Yeah it was good. It was a lot tougher than 6-2, 6-2. You know, we had a lot of tough games out there and I came through some big points when I needed to. Yeah, he's a tough clay court player, he's had good wins on clay, this is his best surface and coming off last week this is a slightly different clay court to what I played on in Hamburg last week so you know for me to get here late and get through like that, it's you know pretty good," Hewitt said.
Russian top seed Nikolay Davydenko had a similarly comfortable win in the first round beating Spain's Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo 6-3, 6-0
Davydenko had won at Portschach last year and will meet Ecuador's Nicolas Lapentti, who defeated Martin Verkerk of the Netherlands, in the second round.
"I don't know if I was playing well. I had too many unforced errors in the first set, and he didn't really fight for it in the second set. This was no real test for my current form," Davydenko said
In a second round matches Peru's Luis Horna upset third-seeded Ivan Ljubicic 7-6 (5), 6-4.
Argentina's Juan Monaco came out victorious in his match against sixth-seed Jurgen Melzer of Austria.
Monaco won 6-3, 6-1 finishing the match just before rain interrupted play for an hour.
Albert Montanes of Spain entered the quarter-finals after beating French qualifier Mathieu Montcourt 7-6 (6), 6-1.
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