Australian Open second seed Andy Roddick has powered through his first round match at Melbourne Park.

The American, who lost to Australia's Lleyton Hewitt in a semi-final in Melbourne last year, beat Swiss player Michael Lammer 6-4 6-2 6-2.

While Lammer was able to compete with Roddick for brief stages during the first and second sets, there was never much doubt about the eventual result.

He was rarely troubled on serve and his consistently powerful shot-making was too much for Lammer, often finishing points with his trademark fiercely struck forehand.

Roddick failed to serve out the first set at 5-2, but eventually claimed the opener 6-4 and from then on his dominance grew.

He reeled off five consecutive games during the second set.

Roddick then broke Lammer's serve to love to open the third set, starting a string of four straight games to take complete control of that set.

After the match, Roddick said he was still below his best.

"I feel like I won pretty comfortably, but I think there's room for improvement as well," Roddick said.

He will play South African Wesley Moodie in the second round.

Roddick will not meet a fellow seed until at least the fourth round, after compatriot and 27th seed Taylor Dent, who he was drawn to play in the third round, was defeated by Spanish player Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.

In Monday's other men's match, Russian Dmitry Tursunov beat British veteran Tim Henman 5-7 6-3 6-4 7-5. Tursunov, the world No.53, had also beat Henman in the second round of Wimbledon last year.

Roddick said even though he was hardly stretched by Lammer, any win in a grand slam tournament was pleasing and he was happy with the way he was hitting the ball.

"If I would have had a tough one I would have said it was great to have a tough one and since I won easy, I'm happy with that," he said.

"A win's a win in my mind, you kind of just want to keep advancing."

"I felt good because even the points I was losing I was losing them on my terms.

"I was hitting the ball big and attacking and it felt clean tonight."

He said his ascendancy in the match had led to the occasional lapse of concentration.

"I played the big points pretty well and then I'd be up 30-0 sometimes and miss a couple shots," Roddick said.

"I guess you'd rather have it that way than any other, but overall I thought it was a pretty good performance."

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