Australian Open - Men: Nadal thrashes Rochus

World number one Rafael Nadal provided an ominous demonstration of his Australian Open intentions by crushing Christophe Rochus of Belgium 6-0 6-2 6-2.

The Spaniard could hardly have been more impressive as he raced to victory in 77 minutes for the loss of just four games.

Nadal, whose best performance at the Australian Open was when he reached the semi-finals last year, faces Roko Karanusic of Croatia in the next round.

Lleyton Hewitt was bundled out after losing against Chile's Fernando Gonzalez 5-7 6-2 6-2 3-6 6-3.

It was Hewitt's first opening-round defeat at the Australian Open since 2002, when he was struck down by chickenpox.

The Australian, a finalist at Melbourne Park four years ago, slipped down the rankings last year after undergoing hip surgery and only returned to competition this month.

Gonzalez, who made the Australian Open final in 2007, looked to have the match under control when he won the second and third sets but started to tire the longer the match went on and needed a medical time-out in the deciding fifth set.

Last year's runner-up Jo-Wilfried Tsonga overcame a patchy first set to thrash Argentine Juan Monaco 6-4 6-4 6-0 and advance to the second round.

Tsonga was broken once in the first set by the world number 49, although Monaco was broken twice himself and saved one other opportunity before the Frenchman won the set in 40 minutes.

The second set followed a similar pattern before world number seven Tsonga ran away with the third set.

Tsonga converted all three of his break opportunities in the final set and sealed the match when he served to love to set up a second-round clash with Croatia's Ivan Ljubicic.

American James Blake overcame dogged resistance from Canadian qualifier Frank Dancevic while seventh seed Gilles Simon, Richard Gasquet and Gael Monfils completed a good day for the French.

Radek Stepanek, Ivo Karlovic, Igor Andreev and Nicolas Almagro were the other seeds through along with Jurgen Melzer , who killed off Japanese prodigy Kei Nishikori.