Lleyton Hewitt and Marinko Matosevic, the two top-ranked Australian professional tennis players, have won their first round encounters in straight sets in Las Vegas.
Four Australians entered the main draw at Delray Beach, with Sam Groth and Matthew Ebden both going down after showing good fight in their tough first round matches.
Matosevic drew Belgium young gun David Goffin in what promised to be an entertaining first round match-up. The Australian, however, had all the answers across the two sets, the 54th-ranked Matosevic breaking Goffin multiple times in the match to notch a comfortable 6-2 6-4 win.
It was a much similar story for Aussie veteran Hewitt, who came into the tournament as the eighth seed.
Hewitt bounced back after his quarter-final loss to Michael Russell last week in Memphis to defeat American Bradley Klahn 6-3 6-1 in a one-sided affair, taking him through to the last 16 at Delray Beach.
Unfortunately for Australian fans, the draw now pits Hewitt and Matosevic against each other in the round of 16. It promises to be a tight match, as both players have had rather inconsistent starts to 2014.
Hewitt played brilliantly in Brisbane, beating Roger Federer in the final, before just falling short of what would of been an amazing comeback against Andreas Seppi in the Australian Open.
He again showed glimpses of great form last week, but missed his best tennis when it mattered in Memphis.
Matosevic has not had the results he would have been after so far, and has really struggled to pull wins together after a great 2013. He faced tough draws in both Brisbane and the Australian Open before playing solid tennis in both tournaments, but was comfortably beaten in the first round again in Memphis.
Hewitt has to be the favourite going into today’s tie, with the winner going through to the quarter-finals in a big match in terms of ranking points and form as the ATP Tour season continues.
In other matches at Delray Beach, Marcos Baghdatis, Kei Nishikori and John Isner all battled their way through to the next round with three-set victories in their first encounters.
Meanwhile, the top seed Tommy Haas looks the goods already, comfortably winning his first match 6-2 6-1.
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