Third seed Lleyton Hewitt routed American Paul Goldstein 6-4, 6-2 in the SAP Open first round on Wednesday, his first match since the Australian Open.

Mark Philippoussis thumped fourth seed Tommy Robredo 3-6, 7-5, 7-5 to advance to the second round.

Hewitt, recovering from an ankle injury, looked sharp, winning six successive games with a rapid fire attack from the baseline to clinch victory.

The 24-year-od Australian was pushed in the first set by Goldstein's changes of pace, but won the set when he crushed a brilliant forehand down the line. After dropping the first two games of the second set, Hewitt's game went up to another level while Goldstein had trouble keeping the ball in the court.

Former San Jose champion Philippoussis earned his first win over a top-15 ranked player for more than two years. Riddled with injuries in 2005, his ranking has fallen to 161st and he needed a wild card to enter the tournament.

Seventh seed Dmitry Tursunov of Russia advanced with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 win over Sweden's Jonas Bjorkman, who is playing doubles here with American great John McEnroe.

American Vince Spadea ground out a 6-2, 6-0 victory over Travis Rettenmaier, and Dane Kenneth Carlsen set up a match against top seed Andy Roddick with a 3-6, 6-2, 6-1 win over Czech Lukas Dlouhy.

Source: Xinhua