French crowd pleaser Jo-Wilfried Tsonga has advanced to the third round of the Australian Open with a minimum of fuss.

Tsonga – whose best grand slam result came when he reached the final at Melbourne Park in 2008 – proved too good for Japan’s Go Soeda, winning 6-3 7-6 (7-1) 6-3 in two hours and three minutes.

The No.7 seed was broken early in the second set, but was able to get back on level terms and then breeze through the tiebreaker.

Soeda had come from a set down to beat Australian wildcard Luke Saville in the opening round.

But there was no way back against Tsonga once Soeda surrendered the second-set tiebreaker on a hot day in Melbourne.

Tsonga will play Australian James Duckworth or Slovenia’s Blaz Kavcic in the third round.

Lithuanian qualifier Ricardas Berankis needed only 77 minutes to send No.25 seed Florian Mayer tumbling out of the Open on Thursday.

Mayer – who hammered an out-of-sorts Bernard Tomic in the pivotal match of last year’s Davis Cup playoff tie against Germany – was trounced 6-2 6-3 6-1 by Berankis.

Fellow German and No.17 seed Philipp Kohlschreiber fared much better, beating Amir Weintraub from Israel 6-2 7-6 (7-4) 6-4 to advance to the third round.