Rome: Novak Djokovic began his bid to reach a third consecutive Rome Masters final with a quick 6-1, 6-1 win over 46th-ranked French opponent Jeremy Chardy on Tuesday.
Djokovic never faced a break point and served well from start to finish — a sharp contrast from his semifinal loss to Fernando Verdasco at the Monte Carlo Masters two weeks ago.
The second-ranked Serb also managed to maintain his focus when rain picked up at the end of the second set, closing the match out in 59 minutes.
Djokovic won this clay-court warmup for the French Open in 2008 and lost last year's final to Rafael Nadal.
Earlier, Lleyton Hewitt grinded out a 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 win over ninth-seeded Mikhail Youzhny, a positive step in the Australian's comeback from hip surgery.
Youzhny committed a whopping 59 unforced errors to Hewitt's 34 and dropped to 1-4 in his career against the former top-ranked player, who underwent surgery on Jan. 29.
The match lasted 2 hours, 29 minutes.
In other matches, Stanislas Wawrinka easily beat Juergen Melzer 6-1, 6-2; Feliciano Lopez advanced past Benjamin Becker 6-4, 6-3; and Italian wild card Simone Bolelli eliminated German lucky loser Simon Greul 6-4, 6-1.
Later, top-ranked Roger Federer plays his first singles match of the clay season against No. 40 Ernests Gulbis and No. 4 Andy Murray was up against the top Italian — Andreas Seppi.
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