World No.3 Lleyton Hewitt overcame a rusty start and windy conditions to open his 2005 singles campaign with a victory over French qualifier Arnaud Clement in the Next Generation Hardcourts tennis tournament at Adelaide's Memorial Drive.

Hewitt produced a string of early unforced errors to drop four consecutive games in the first set and hand it to Clement in quick time.

But he then found his rhythm to race through the final two sets and win the first-round match 2-6 6-1 6-1.

"It was just tough conditions out there tonight, it just took a while," Hewitt said.

"I saw a couple of matches earlier today when I was out here warming up and I don't think anyone played great tennis out there today. It's just not conditions to do that.

"It's just a matter of I tried to go out there and play my game early on and in the end I was probably trying to be a little bit too aggressive. I didn't serve well enough in the first set.

"I just went back to playing percentages and just trying to get the win out tonight and just move on to the second round."

Hewitt won the final five games of the second set, serving the set out with an ace, then produced a well-placed backhand lob to break Clement in the opening game of the third set and keep the momentum rolling his way."

He won 11 of the final 12 games of the match.

Clement, a former top-10 player and an Australian Open finalist in 2001, was forced to qualify for this tournament after dropping to 106 in the rankings at the end of last year.

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