• Barcelona Open

Hewitt safely through in Barcelona

Lleyton Hewitt had hip surgery after the Australian Open © Getty Images

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Former world No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt survived a tricky encounter against Turkish qualifier Marsel Ihlan to progress to the second round of the Barcelona Open.

The Australian, playing in just his second tournament after recovering from hip surgery, struggled with his serve as he battled to a 6-4 4-6 6-2 victory, eight years after he last played in Barcelona.

Despite firing five aces in the second set, Hewitt's serve was broken on three occasions by the world No. 123, who was able to claw his way back into the match. In the deciding set, Hewitt only managed 38% success rate with his first serve, but converted the serves he did get in to good effect to wrap up victory in just under two hours.

Hewitt will now play Eduardo Schwank in the second round, after the Argentine beat Italy's Fabio Fognini on Monday.

There were three second-round games on Tuesday and No. 2 seed Robin Soderling advanced with a 7-5 7-5 win over Juan Ignacio Chela. The Swede was joined in the third round by Nicolas Almagro who crushed Simon Greul 6-1 6-3, while Ivan Navarro was a 6-2 6-4 win over Pablo Cuevas.

Ninth seed Tommy Robredo exited the tournament at the first-round stage, with the Spaniard retiring when trailing 3-1 in the final set to qualifier Simone Bolelli. Robredo took the first set in a tie-break, but Bolelli hit back to take the second set 6-4 and was in the ascendancy when Robredo was forced to quit.

Tenth seed Juan Monaco crashed to a first-round defeat to Spanish qualifier Daniel Gimeno-Traver. Monaco, whose three career titles have come on clay, served seven aces as he slumped to a 6-2 3-6 6-2 defeat.

No. 14 seed Albert Montanes, who enjoyed an impressive run in Monte Carlo last week, fell at the first hurdle, slumping to a 6-3 7-6(1) defeat to France's Jeremy Chardy.

Lucky Loser Ivan Navarro grabbed his opportunity with both hands to move into the third round with a 6-2 6-4 victory over Uruguay's Pablo Cuevas. After failing to qualify, Navarro was only granted a place in the draw after Tomas Berdych withdrew with an ankle injury on Monday.

Dennis Istomin battled his way to a 7-6(6) 1-6 6-1 win over Stephane Robert, while Sergiy Stakhovsky recovered from losing the first set to beat Mischa Zverev 4-6 6-4 6-2.

The No. 11 seed Jurgen Melzer had a routine 6-3 6-3 win over Nicolas Lapentti, while Feliciano Lopez was in total command of his game with Oleksandr Dolgopolov when his Ukraine opponent retired.

Ernests Gulbis battled past Peter Luczak 7-6(4) 6-3, while Alberto Martin beat Mikhail Kuzushkin 7-5 6-4.

Victor Hanescu dropped just three games in beating Andreas Beck 6-1 6-2.

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