Gutsy Victorian Peter Luczak was the shining light in a mixed bag of results for the Australian men at the Adelaide International tennis tournament, upsetting fifth seed Dominik Hrbaty.

Luczak started the new year with a fighting 7-6 (9-7) 6-3 win against Hrbaty after trailing 5-2 in the first set.

Hrbaty failed to convert a set point at 5-3 after Luczak had a bit of luck with a forehand mishit falling inside the baseline.

The 166th-ranked Australian steadied his game and serve sending down four aces to stay in the set and force a tie break.

Luczak said the win was a great start in the lead up to the Australian Open and the tournament's new round robin format might have been the reason for his lack of nerves.

The ATP Tour is trialling a format with a field of 32 players and including an elimination round followed by eight three-player pools and a final knock-out series.

"The pressure was off me and I could go out there and enjoy it," Luczak said.

"Even in the tie break when I was down six points to four, I had some strange feeling that I was not getting tight.

"It is good to know that you at least have two matches either way.

Former world number one Lleyton Hewitt dusted off the cobwebs in his first appearance but lost his doubles match with fellow Australian Paul Hanley.

They went down 6-2 7-6 (7-5) to the Czech duo of Lukas Dlouhy and Pavel Vizner.

Hewitt, who last week described his form as better than when he was world champion in 2001, said he felt he returned well and improved as the game progressed.

"I actually thought in the second set that we were probably the better team out there," Hewitt said.

"We had a lot more chances but we just couldn't quiet take them.

"All in all I think we got better as the match went on."

In other Australian results, Alun Jones beat Czech Jan Hajek 6-3 6-2 and Chris Guccione beat German Benjamin Becker 7-5 6-3 in round robin matches.

Nathan Healey and Paul Baccanello were both eliminated after losing to Russian Evgeny Korolev 7-5 7-5 and Canadian Frank Dancevic 6-3 6-3 respectively.

Fourth seed Hewitt will open his singles campaign against Serbian Janko Tipsarevic on Tuesday night while Luczak will play American Paul Goldstein in his second and final pool match on Wednesday.

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