Hewitt, the Open’s 2005 runner-up and seeded 19th this year, crushed Darcis 6-0 6-3 6-0 in just 77 minutes at Melbourne Park’s Rod Laver Arena.

The South Australian will next play either Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin, the Asian wildcard recipient ranked No.216 in the world on Thursday for a place in the last 32, AAP reported.

A disappointing second-round loser in both Adelaide and Sydney in the previous two weeks, former world No.1 Hewitt made a lightning start today, dropping just nine points to take the opening set in 23 minutes.

He continued the assault in the second set, breaking the world No.83’s serve to go up 3-1.

Hewitt lapsed briefly to drop his serve the next game for the only time in the match.

But he immediately broke back to go 4-2 up and then broke the Belgian’s service four more times in a confident start to his 12th Open campaign.

“It was good. I hadn’t never played him before and hadn’t seen a lot of him,” Hewitt said.

“This time last year he was 400 in the world and now he’s top 80 so he’s obviously playing well. But I felt like I dictated from the start and that’s what I needed to do.

Hewitt said he had benefited from the tough practice workload imposed by new coach Tony Roche.

“We got a lot of good hard hitting on the practice court,” he said.

“Rochey is a very tough taskmaster and it’s very hard to please him.”

Hewitt No.1 was also complimentary about the new Plexicushion surface which has replaced Rebound Ace.

“It’s a matter of trying to get a more consistent court across the board and right across Australia,” he said.

“Hopefully this is going to be a court which we can develop a lot of juniors on.”