Djokovic, Gasquet, Hewitt win in Adelaide

PERTH, Jan 2 (Reuters) Top seed Novak Djokovic of Serbia cruised through his opening pool match in the Adelaide International today, losing just one game to Czech Jan Hajek. The 19-year-old world number 16 needed just 57 minutes to see off 16th-seeded Hajek in his first match in the tournament, which is testing the ATP's new 32-player hybrid round-robin format.

The Serb fired nine aces and will move into the quarter-finals with a victory against home player Alun Jones on Wednesday.

''I played a really good first match today,'' Djokovic told reporters. ''He didn't play his best but I didn't allow him to play his game and I was in control. I just hope I will continue the same way tomorrow.

''I am just going to play my game, to be in control and be aggressive. That is how I've played all my life,'' he added.

French second seed Richard Gasquet enjoyed an equally emphatic bow in the tournament, the 20-year-old requiring less than 50 minutes to sweep past German ninth seed Florian Mayer 6-2 6-1.

Third seed Radek Stepanek got his 2007 campaign off to a woeful start with defeat at the hands of American Vince Spadea. The Czech, who recently became engaged to former women's world number one Martina Hingis, went down 6-4 6-4.

Fifth seed Dominik Hrbaty has no chance of making it into the last eight after a second defeat in two days. After losing to home wildcard Peter Luczak on Monday, the Slovak fell 6-2 7-6 (7-4) to Paul Goldstein of the U.S.

Former world number one Lleyton Hewitt opened his 2007 singles campaign with a win, albeit after Serbian opponent Janko Tipsarevic retired in the second set of their pool match.

The fourth seed, who won the tournament as a 16-year-old in 1998, was 6-1 4-2 ahead when Tipsarevic pulled out with a thigh injury.

Hewitt next plays Russian Igor Kunitsyn in his second pool match on Wednesday.

The Adelaide tournament is the first in 2007 to test the new ATP format, with an initial 32-player field whittled down to 24 in an elimination round, before eight pools of three players are formed.

The eight pool winners make up the quarter-final line-up.

REUTERS PM PM1704