New Delhi: Lleyton Hewitt kicked off preparations for the US Open in style with a straight sets victory over Juan Carlos Ferrero in the opening round of the Montreal Masters in Montreal on Monday.
The Australian triumphed 7-6, 6-4 in the battle between the two former world No 1s to set up a second round meeting with either ninth seed James Blake or Jurgen Melzer.
The match was Hewitt's first since his fourth round exit at Wimbledon more than a month ago.
Hewitt is using the Montreal tournament and next week's Masters event in Cincinnati to warm up for the final Grand Slam of the year - the US Open - that starts from August 27.
However, 10th seed Tomas Berdych, No. 11 Ivan Ljubicic and Argentina's Guillermo Canas, who is seeded 15th, failed to make it to the next round.
Berdych was defeated by the Netherlands's Robin Haase 6-4, 7-5 while Ljubicic lost to American qualifier Wayne Odesnik 6-3, 4-6, 7-6.
Canas lost to Paul-Henri Mathieu of France in a dramatic match even though he was leading 6-4, 4-0 at one stage.
But Mathieu won 13 of the last 14 games to pocket match 4-6, 7-5, 6-0 and moved into the next round.
The other players who moved in to the next round are David Nalbandian, David Ferrer, Mikhail Youzhny, Michael Russell and Dominik Hrbaty.
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