Australian veteran Lleyton Hewitt won through to the second round of the China Open on Monday with an impressive straight-sets win over seventh seed Tommy Haas.
Hewitt accounted for the German 7-6 (8-6) 6-3 and next faces Fabio Fognini of Italy for a berth in the quarter-finals.
Fellow Australian Marinko Matosevic will face Frenchman Julien Benneteau in his opening-round clash.
Earlier, Bernard Tomic advanced with a hard-fought straight-sets win over local crowd favourite Zhang Ze in Beijing.
The Australian powered to a 7-6 (7-4) 6-4 victory over China’s world No.193 in the first match of the ATP tournament.
Tomic began slowly and was forced to save two set points as he clawed his way back from 5-3 down.
Zhang took a 2-0 lead in the tiebreaker, but Tomic bounced back again to seal the opening set.
The 20-year-old then broke Zhang’s serve early in the second set.
Coming off an emphatic second-round loss to Gilles Simon in last week’s Thailand Open, Tomic booked a berth in the next round against fifth-seeded Frenchman Richard Gasquet or German Florian Mayer.
Stay informed, daily
In the women’s draw reigning China Open champion Victoria Azarenka crashed out in the first round going down to former finalist Andrea Petkovic.
The Belarusian world No.2 rarely showed glimpses of the form which helped her claim the title last year, at times appearing sluggish as she committed a staggering 15 double faults in the 6-4 2-6 6-4 loss in Beijing.
It is the second early exit in a row for the 24-year-old, who complained of feeling ill when she was defeated by Venus Williams in the second round of the Pan Pacific Open last week.
China’s Zhang Shuai continued her sizzling form, defeating compatriot Peng Shuai 6-3 6-3 to set up a second-round match against tenth seed Roberta Vinci.
