Lleyton Hewitt has started his Wimbledon build-up in style with a clinical first-round win at Queen’s Club.
The 33-year-old, a four-time champion at the prestigious grass court event in London, needed little more than an hour to dispatch Spaniard Daniel Gimeno-Traver 6-3 6-3 on Monday.
He joined compatriots Bernard Tomic and James Duckworth in the second round as all three Australians involved on day one had wins.
Tomic claimed his first ATP main draw win in almost five months by beating American Tim Smyczek 6-4 3-6 7-5, while qualifier Duckworth defeated Israeli Dudi Sela 0-6 7-6 (7-5) 6-4.
World No.43 Hewitt reached the semi-finals at Queen’s last year and his bid to make another run deep into the draw began brightly.
Back on his favourite surface after a first-round French Open exit, the 2002 Wimbledon champion was sharp from the beginning against 99th-ranked Gimeno-Traver.
He raced to a 2-0 lead and came from 0-40 down to hold serve in the third game, always controlling the set from there.
Hewitt broke in the first and last games of the second set to line up a second-round meeting with either 10th seed Feliciano Lopez or Serbian Dusan Lajovic on Wednesday.
He’ll be hoping to win back-to-back matches for the first time since claiming the Brisbane ATP title in January.
Earlier, Tomic secured a much-needed win but it was hardly the confidence-boosting performance he was looking for.
Smyczek, ranked 106th, served for the match up 5-4 in the third set, only to tighten up as Tomic won 12 of the next 13 points to escape with victory.
“I should have lost that,” said Tomic, who has struggled for form since double hip surgery in February.
“Tennis, you can play like crap for the whole two sets and then you can find three, four points and you can win the match. It’s just strange.”
Tomic will next meet either Czech 15th seed Radek Stepanek or Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Kukushkin, while Qualifier Duckworth faces second seed Tomas Berdych in round two.
Marinko Matosevic and Matt Ebden play in first-round matches on Tuesday.
